Tests of a composite model of quarks and leptons.

Abstract

Recent studies of radiative corrections to electroweak processes restrict the particle content of dynamical-symmetry-breaking schemes. The minimal anomaly-free model with one doublet of Dirac fermions $F\ensuremath{\equiv}(U,D)$ having charges $Q=\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\frac{1}{2}$ is consistent with such restrictions. These fermions may be regarded as the constituents of a strongly interacting Higgs sector, so that the longitudinal $W$ and $Z$ and higher-spin excitations (including vector mesons, called ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{T}$, with isospin $I=1$, and ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{T}$, with $I=0$) are all composites of $F'\mathrm{s}$. It is then natural to ask if these fermions can be the sole carriers of weak SU(2), so that quarks and leptons would also have to be composed of them. Some tests of this hypothesis in hadronic and ${e}^{+}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ collisions are suggested.