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The energy scale of electro-weak processes is around $160$ GeV. But the LHC has a centre of mass energy of $7$ TeV... so do they see processes involving the $W^1, W^2, W^3$ and $B$ fields, before spontaneous symmetry breaking and mixing into the well-know massive gauge bosons + photon?

Qmechanic
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SuperCiocia
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    Related: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/119921/42937 – FrodCube May 16 '18 at 17:54
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    I think this has to have been asked before. Basically, a high energy collision is not the same as a high temperature. – knzhou May 17 '18 at 12:37
  • Related. "Before SSB" is a highly ambiguous, indeed, dangerous term. As long as the EW vacuum is at 0.246 TeV, all is conventional at the LHC, except the masses of the gauge bosons are not too significant/noticeable at several TeVs, and the linked question indicates how you may get the same answers by carefully ignoring them. But as @knzhou points out, in a cosmological soup with zillions of particles of T~ 0.16 TeV, the above v vacuum is lost. Not at the LHC. – Cosmas Zachos May 17 '18 at 13:12
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    This answer, edited explains it quite well. – Cosmas Zachos May 17 '18 at 14:08
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    Thus this question is a duplicate, after all. – anna v May 17 '18 at 15:01

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