TITLE: Higgs mechanism from a deformation quantization point of view
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: Is it possible to describe the Higgs mechanism from a deformation quantization point of view? How would one do it? Are there aspects of the Higgs mechanism and Higgs particle which one may see clearer from such a point of view?

REPLY [6 votes]: The Higgs mechanism in the Standard Model doesn't have much to do with deformation quantization as other people have explained. However there is a version of the Higgs mechanism in string theory which involves stable D-branes arising via the Higgs mechanism from unstable D-branes. This is very hard to study directly in string field theory where one has to resort to approximate numerical techniques, but if one deforms the theory by turning on a B field as discussed in Seiberg and Witten, hep-th/9908142 one obtains a noncommutative version and in the "large B limit" one can obtain exact results. For details see hep-th/0005031 and references therein.