Vector theories with non-linear derivative self-interactions that break gauge
symmetries have been shown to have interesting cosmological applications. In
this paper we introduce a way to spontaneously break the gauge symmetry and
construct these theories via a Higgs mechanism. In addition to the purely gauge
field interactions, our method generates new ghost-free scalar-vector
interactions between the Higgs field and the gauge boson. We show how these
additional terms are found to reduce, in a suitable decoupling limit, to scalar
bi-Galileon interactions between the Higgs field and Goldstone bosons. Our
formalism is first developed in the context of abelian symmetry, which allows
us to connect with earlier work on the extension of the Proca action. We then
show how this formalism is straightforwardly generalised to generate theories
with non-abelian symmetry.Comment: 15 pages, no figures. V2: published versio
