Nonlinear Brownian motion and Higgs mechanism

An extension of the stochastic quantization scheme is proposed by adding nonlinear terms to the field equations. Our modification is motivated by the recently established theory of active Brownian motion. We discuss a way of promoting this theory to the case of infinite degrees of freedom. Equilibrium distributions can be calculated exactly and are interpreted as path integral densities of quantum field theories. By applying our procedure to scalar QED, the symmetry breaking potential of the Higgs mechanism arises as the equilibrium solution.