Are Constants Constant?

The prospect of a time-dependent Higgs vacuum expectation value is examined within the standard model of electroweak interactions. It is shown that the classical equation of motion for the Higgs field admits a solution that is a doubly-periodic function of time. The corresponding Dirac equation for the electron field is equivalent to a second order differential equation with doubly-periodic coefficients. In the limit of very large primitive period of the Higgs background this equation can be solved in WKBJ approximation, showing plane-wave solutions with a time-dependent distortion factor which can be made arbitrarily small

Recent Theoretical Developments in LEP 2 Physics

Recent theoretical developments in electron-positron annihilation into fermion pairs are summarized. In particular, two-fermion production, DPA for WW signal, single-W production and ZZ signa

Non-Annihilation Processes, Fermion-Loop and QED Radiation

The bulk of large radiative corrections to any process can be obtained by promoting coupling constants to be running ones and by including QED radiation at the leading logarithmic level via structure functions evoluted at some scale. The problem of fixing the proper scale in running coupling constants and in structure functions for non-annihilation processes is briefly addressed and the general solution is analyzed

Precision Physics Near LEP Shutdown and Evolutionary Developments

The most celebrated aspects of precision physics are briefly summarized. New ideas are also introduced that may lead to further developments in the field of radiative corrections, with special emphasis to multi-loop numerical evaluation and to a correct treatment of QED radiation for arbitrary processes