Unitarily inequivalent vacua and long-range forces: Phenomenology with scalar boson mass-shift

Abstract

We explore the impact of a sudden shift in the mass of a scalar boson field on longrange forces mediated by this field under the framework of unitarily inequivalent vacua. Since the search for new long-range forces is an active experimental area probing physics beyond the Standard Model, the consequence of a non-trivial vacuum state of a scalar boson on these experiments is elucidated. We show that while the mass shift affects the one-boson exchange potential, the Casimir force remains only dependent on the vacuum state.