title: Symmetry breakdown and coupling constants of leptons.
abstract: Based on a new approach to symmetries of the fundamental interactions we deal, in this paper, with the electroweak interactions of leptons. We show that the coupling constants, arising in the way leptons are coupled to intermediate bosons, can be understood as parameters associated to the breakdown of SU(2) and parity symmetries. The breakdown of both symmetries is characterized by a new parameter (the asymmetry parameter) of the electroweak interactions. This parameter gives a measure of the strength of breakdown of symmetries. We analyse the behaviour of the theory for three values of this parameter. The most relevant value is the one for which only the electromagnetic interactions do not break parity (the maximally allowed left-right asymmetric theory). Maximally allowed parity asymmetry is a requirement that is met for a value of Weinberg's theta-angle that is quite close to the experimental value of this parameter.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, 05315-970, Brazil. marques@if.usp.br
authors.forename: Gil C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Marques
authors.forename: Dominique
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Spehler