Physics of Electroweak Symmetry Breaking and Its Implications

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal requests support for a continuing program of research on the mechanism and scale of electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB). Understanding EWSB is both the last major aspect of the highly successful Standard Model of Particle Physics (SM) which needs to be resolved, and also the doorway into physics beyond the SM. The Higgs mechanism is the basic spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanism of the standard model, but it suffers from problems due to the potentially large radiative corrections to its key parameters, the Higgs boson mass and scale of EWSB, which conflict with the experimental bounds on them. The problem then is to find new physics which will stabilize these parameters and which will do so without fine tuning the parameters of the new physics. The PI proposes to investigate two different approaches to the problem: one makes use of supersymmetry at the weak scale, and the other does not use supersymmetry, but treats the Higgs boson as a pseudo-Goldstone Boson. It turns out that these approaches will have distinctive features which have implications for experiments at the Tevatron and LHC and so so are highly relevant to the field. there are also important implications for Cosmology, including the issues of dark matter, dark energy, nucleosynthesis and the cosmic microwave background. The PI plans thoroughly to explore all of these aspects of EWSB. The broader impacts of the proposal are mainly concerned with the training of graduate students and postdocs at the university and at summer schools, but also contain a worthwhile outreach program to high schools and the general public.