Noncommutativity and unitarity violation in gauge boson scattering

We examine the unitarity properties of spontaneously broken noncommutative gauge theories. We find that the symmetry breaking mechanism in the noncommutative standard model of Chaichian et al. leads to an unavoidable violation of tree-level unitarity in gauge boson scattering at high energies. We then study a variety of simplified spontaneously broken noncommutative theories and isolate the source of this unitarity violation. Given the group theoretic restrictions endemic to noncommutative model building, we conclude that it is difficult to build a noncommutative standard model under the Weyl-Moyal approach that preserves unitarity.