Spontaneous symmetry breaking, gauge hierarchy and electroweak vacuum metastability

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Main Authors: Benevedes, Sean, Steingasser, Thomas, Trifinopoulos, Sokratis
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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_version_ 1866929465547816960
author Benevedes, Sean
Steingasser, Thomas
Trifinopoulos, Sokratis
author_facet Benevedes, Sean
Steingasser, Thomas
Trifinopoulos, Sokratis
contents The so-called metastability bound asserts that an unnaturally small Higgs mass is a necessary condition for electroweak vacuum metastability, offering a new approach towards solving the hierarchy problem. So far, this result relies on the assumption of a negative Higgs mass parameter, or equivalently, on electroweak spontaneous symmetry breaking. We derive a new, corresponding bound for the case of a positive mass parameter. When the new bound is significantly more restrictive than or comparable to its established counterpart, it may offer an explanation for the sign of the Higgs mass parameter, and thus, spontaneous symmetry breaking itself. New physics at scales $\mathcal{O} (1-10)$ TeV can lower these bounds as far as the TeV-scale. As an illustration, we consider vacuum stability in the presence of additional TeV-scale fermions with Yukawa couplings to the Higgs, as well as a dimension-six term parameterizing new physics in the UV. This scenario requires new physics that couples strongly to the Higgs, and can potentially be probed at future colliders. Finally, to allow for comparison with concrete mechanisms predicting metastability, we provide the mass-dependent lifetime of the electroweak vacuum for this model.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_10297
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Spontaneous symmetry breaking, gauge hierarchy and electroweak vacuum metastability
Benevedes, Sean
Steingasser, Thomas
Trifinopoulos, Sokratis
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
High Energy Physics - Theory
The so-called metastability bound asserts that an unnaturally small Higgs mass is a necessary condition for electroweak vacuum metastability, offering a new approach towards solving the hierarchy problem. So far, this result relies on the assumption of a negative Higgs mass parameter, or equivalently, on electroweak spontaneous symmetry breaking. We derive a new, corresponding bound for the case of a positive mass parameter. When the new bound is significantly more restrictive than or comparable to its established counterpart, it may offer an explanation for the sign of the Higgs mass parameter, and thus, spontaneous symmetry breaking itself. New physics at scales $\mathcal{O} (1-10)$ TeV can lower these bounds as far as the TeV-scale. As an illustration, we consider vacuum stability in the presence of additional TeV-scale fermions with Yukawa couplings to the Higgs, as well as a dimension-six term parameterizing new physics in the UV. This scenario requires new physics that couples strongly to the Higgs, and can potentially be probed at future colliders. Finally, to allow for comparison with concrete mechanisms predicting metastability, we provide the mass-dependent lifetime of the electroweak vacuum for this model.
title Spontaneous symmetry breaking, gauge hierarchy and electroweak vacuum metastability
topic High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
High Energy Physics - Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.10297