that is asymmetric with respect to chiralities is called a chiral theory, while a non-chiral (i.e., parity-symmetric) theory is sometimes called a vector theory. Many pieces of the Standard Model of physics are non-chiral, which is traceable to anomaly cancellation in chiral theories. Quantum chromodynamics is an example of a vector theory, since both chiralities of all quarks appear in the theory, and couple to gluons in the same way. The electroweak theory, developed in the mid 20th century, is an example of a chiral theory. Originally, it assumed that neutrinos were massless, and only assumed the existence of left-handed neutrinos (along with their complementary right-handed antineutrinos). After the observation of neutrino oscillations, which imply that neutrinos are massive (like all other fermions) the revised theories of the electroweak interaction now include both right- and left-handed neutrinos. However, it is still a chiral theory, as it does not respect parity symmetry. The exact nature of the neutrino is still unsettled and so the electroweak theories that have been proposed are somewhat different, but most accommodate the chirality of neutrinos in the same way as was already done for all other fermions. Chiral symmetry Vector gauge theories with massless Dirac fermion fields exhibit chiral symmetry, i.e., rotating the left-handed and the right-handed components independently makes no difference to the theory. We can write this as the action of rotation on the fields: and or and With flavors, we have unitary rotations instead: . More generally, we write the right-handed and left-handed states as a projection operator acting on a spinor. The right-handed and left-handed projection operators are and Massive fermions do not exhibit chiral symmetry, as the mass term in the Lagrangian, , breaks chiral symmetry explicitly. Spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking may also occur in some theories, as it most notably does in quantum chromodynamics. The chiral symmetry transformation can be divided into a component that treats the left-handed and the right-handed parts equally, known as vector symmetry, and a component that actually treats them differently, known as axial symmetry. (cf. Current algebra.) A scalar field model encoding chiral symmetry and its breaking is the chiral model. The most common application is expressed as equal treatment of clockwise and counter-clockwise rotations from a fixed frame of reference. The general principle is often referred to by the name chiral symmetry. The rule is absolutely valid in the classical mechanics of Newton and