Can one test technicolour?

We estimate the couplings to ordinary particles of the lightest bound states in technicolour theories and discuss the resulting phenomenology. We compute their couplings to light gauge bosons through axial anomalies and also estimate their non-anomalous couplings at low energies. We estimate their couplings to fermions under the general simplifying assumption that each fermion acquires its mass from a unique technifermion condensate (“monophagy”), in which case they are naturally flavour conserving and relatively well-defined. We find that the classic Higgs search experiments (ttoponium → H⁰ + γ, e⁺e^? → H⁺H^?, e⁺e^? → Z⁰ + H⁰) enable one to make a decisive discrimination between elementary and composite models of spontaneous symmetry breaking. We also emphasize the interest of improving experimental limits on K_L⁰ → μe in the context of dynamical symmetry breaking models.     

Gauge hierarchies of SU(N) grand unification

The structure of spontaneous breaking of SU(N) gauge symmetry for grand unification is investigated. The results obtained are applied to the analysis of SU(8) symmetry for which possible ways of breaking and intermediate symmetries are considered. It is assumed that the SU(8) group unifies the subgroups of colour, standard electroweak and horizontal symmetries. We find conditions which it is necessary to impose on the vacuum expectation values of Higgs multiplets to provide an arbitrary breaking pattern of SU(N) symmetry and conserve any intermediate symmetry. If in the SU(8) models considered fermions and mirror fermions do not violate the (V-A) and (V+A) structure of weak interactions, then their masses should not be greater than ～10² GeV. It is also shown that the contributions of fermion and Higgs multiplets to the renormalization group equation for the coupling constant of any subgroup of SU(N) are identical. Renormalization group identities for the case of arbitrary SU(N) breaking are given where the contribution of Higgs multiplets have been taken into account (but they cancel each other). Using these identities one can calculate the mass values for the breaking of the intermediate symmetries in the SU(8) models, and also exclude part of the possible breaking patterns.     

Grand unification with local supersymmetry

We study general conditions for obtaining spontaneous breaking of local supersymmetry in N = 1 supergravity coupled to supersymmetric matter. We consider in particular the coupling of N = 1 supergravity to grand unified theories like SU(5) and study the conditions which must be met in order to obtain a realistic model. Specific models are built in which local supersymmetry is broken at a scale √M_Wm_p ～ 10¹⁰ GeV. This breaking of supersymmetry is only detected at low energies through soft terms breaking explicitly the global supersymmetry. These soft terms (scalar masses, gaugino masses and trilinear scalar couplings) are renormalized at low energies according to the renormalization group. The (mass)² of the Higgs doublet evolve towards negative values at low energies giving rise to SU(2) × U(1) breaking as a radiative effect of local supersymmetry breaking. We finally point out the possible relevance of non-renormalizable superpotentials for the problem of fermion masses.     

Standard Model without elementary scalars and high energy Lorentz violation

If Lorentz symmetry is violated at high energies, interactions that are usually non-renormalizable can become renormalizable by weighted power counting. Recently, a CPT invariant, Lorentz violating extension of the Standard Model containing two scalar-two fermion interactions (which can explain neutrino masses) and four fermion interactions (which can explain proton decay) was proposed. In this paper we consider a variant of this model, obtained suppressing the elementary scalar fields, and argue that it can reproduce the known low-energy physics. In the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio spirit, we show, using a large N _c expansion, that a dynamical symmetry breaking takes place. The effective potential has a Lorentz invariant minimum and the Lorentz violation does not reverberate down to low energies. The mechanism generates fermion masses, gauge-boson masses and scalar bound states, to be identified with composite Higgs bosons. Our approach is not plagued by the ambiguities of approaches based on non-renormalizable vertices. The low-energy effective action is uniquely determined and predicts relations among parameters of the Standard Model.     

Can the nearly conformal sextet gauge model hide the Higgs impostor?

New results are reported from large scale lattice simulations of a frequently discussed strongly interacting gauge theory with a fermion flavor doublet in the two-index symmetric (sextet) representation of the SU(3) color gauge group. We find that the chiral condensate and the mass spectrum of the sextet model are consistent with chiral symmetry breaking in the limit of vanishing fermion mass. In contrast, sextet fermion mass deformations of spectral properties are not consistent with leading conformal scaling behavior near the critical surface of a conformal theory. A recent paper could not resolve the conformal fixed point of the gauge coupling from the slowly walking scenario of a very small nearly vanishing β-function (DeGrand et al. [3]). It is argued that overall consistency with our new results is resolved if the sextet model is close to the conformal window, staying outside with a very small non-vanishing β-function. The model would exhibit then the simplest composite Higgs mechanism leaving open the possibility of a light scalar state with quantum numbers of the Higgs impostor. It would emerge as the pseudo-Goldstone dilaton state from spontaneous symmetry breaking of scale invariance. We will argue that even without association with the dilaton, the scalar Higgs-like state can be light very close to the conformal window. A new Higgs project of sextet lattice simulations is outlined to resolve these important questions.     

Uplifted supersymmetric Higgs region

We show that the parameter space of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model includes a region where the down-type fermion masses are generated by the loop-induced couplings to the up-type Higgs doublet. In this region the down-type Higgs doublet does not acquire a vacuum expectation value at tree level, and has sizable couplings in the superpotential to the tau leptons and bottom quarks. Besides a light standard-like Higgs boson, the Higgs spectrum includes the nearly degenerate states of a heavy spin-0 doublet which can be produced through their couplings to the b quark and decay predominantly into τ ⁺ τ ^? or τν.     

Dynamical generation of flavour

We propose the generation of Standard Model fermion hierarchy by the extension of renormalizable SO(10) GUT with O(N_g) family gauge symmetry. In this scenario, Higgs representations of SO(10) also carry family indices and are called Yukawons. Vacuum expectation values of these Yukawon fields break GUT and family symmetry and generate MSSM Yukawa couplings dynamically. We have demonstrated this idea using \({\mathbf {10}}\oplus {\mathbf {210}} \oplus {\mathbf {126}} \oplus {\overline {\mathbf {126}}}\) Higgs irrep, ignoring the contribution of 120-plet which is, however, required for complete fitting of fermion mass-mixing data. The effective MSSM matter fermion couplings to the light Higgs pair are determined by the null eigenvectors of the MSSM-type Higgs doublet superfield mass matrix \(\mathcal {H}\). A consistency condition on the doublet ([1,2,±1]) mass matrix (\(\text {Det}(\mathcal {H})=\) 0) is required to keep one pair of Higgs doublets light in the effective MSSM. We show that the Yukawa structure generated by null eigenvectors of \(\mathcal {H}\) are of generic kind required by the MSSM. A hidden sector with a pair of (S_ab; ?_ab) fields breaks supersymmetry and facilitates \(D_{O(N_{g})}\hspace *{-1pt}=\) 0. SUSY breaking is communicated via supergravity. In this scenario, matter fermion Yukawa couplings are reduced from 15 to just 3 parameters in MSGUT with three generations.     

Baryogenesis,proton decay and fermion masses in supergravity guts

In realistic N = 1 supergravity theories with a gravitino mass of order 1 TeV, the reheat temperature after inflation is bounded to be no greater than 10⁸ GeV. We construct an N = 1 supergravity model with realistic fermion masses and mixings in which D = 5 operators are suppressed by a Peccei-Quinn symmetry. We compute the ensuing proton decay and show that the dominant modes involve strange particles in the final state. Efficient baryogenesis is induced by Higgs decay to massive right-handed neutrinos and we find an upper bound on the proton lifetime if the Higgs are light enough to be reheated.     

Interplay between grand unification and supersymmetry in <Emphasis Type="BoldItalic">SU</Emphasis>(5) and <Emphasis Type="BoldItalic">E</Emphasis> <Subscript> <Emphasis Type="Bold">6</Emphasis> </Subscript>

Some aspects of minimal supersymmetric renormalizable grand unified theories are reviewed here. These include some constraints on the model parameters from the Higgs and light fermion masses in SU(5), and the issues of symmetry breaking, doublet–triplet splitting and fermion masses in E₆.     

Induced Higgs couplings to neutral bosons in e+e− collisions

We calculate induced couplings of the type HV_γ in the standard model, where H is a Higgs meson and V is a virtual or real neutral gauge boson (Z⁰ or photon). Numerous applications are given for e⁺e^? collisions and various Higgs meson decays. The calculated rates are in general somewhat too low to make these processed an attractive way to search for the Higgs boson. However, once it has been found, it is argued that these processes should be studied experimentally since the induced couplings probe the structure of the gauge theory in an interesting way. In particular, it may be possible to infer the existence of one or more heavy fermion generations (of mass ?m_Z) by observing their virtual effects in radiative decays into Higgs particles. We also briefly treat the related coupling HV_γ with V a heavy quarkonium vector state.     

Measurement of the top-Higgs Yukawa coupling at a linear e<Superscript>+</Superscript>e<Superscript>-</Superscript> collider

Understanding the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking and the origin of boson and fermion masses is among the most pressing questions raised in contemporary particle physics. If these issues involve one (several) Higgs boson(s), a precise measurement of all its (their) properties will be of prime importance. Among those, the Higgs coupling to matter fermions (the Yukawa coupling). At a linear collider, the process e⁺e^-→tt̄H will allow a direct measurement of the top-Higgs Yukawa coupling. We present a realistic feasibility study of the measurement in the context of the TESLA collider. Four channels are studied and the analysis is repeated for several Higgs mass values within the range 120–200 GeV/c ². PACS 13.66.Jn; 14.65.Ha; 14.80.Bn     

A grand unified model with Bogolubov's symmetry breaking mechanism

It is shown that E₆ is the minimal group in the E-chain of the Dynkin diagrams which allows the construction of a unified model of elementary particles in the framework of the Bogolubov method for dynamic symmetry breaking. The idea is based on the introduction of a fundamental self-coupled spinor field, the collective modes of which have the properties of gauge and Higgs particles. The hierarchy of fermion masses is discussed.     

Radiative corrections to the vector boson-charged-Higgs-boson vertex

Radiative corrections to the gauge bosoncharged Higgs vertex are calculated to one loop, and are applied to the decayZ→H ⁺ H ^?. Naively, one expects the corrections to be quite large due to the contribution from fermion loops. If this is the case one could hope to extract some information on the Yukawa couplings in the charged Higgs sector.     

Production and two-photon decay of the MSSM scalar Higgs bosons at the LHC

We consider the production and two-photon decay of theCP-even Higgs bosons (h ⁰ andH ⁰) of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) at the Large Hadron Collider. We study in detail the dependence of the cross section on various parameters of the MSSM, especially the dependence on the mixing effects in the squark sector due to the Higgs bilinear parameterμ and the soft supersymmetry breaking parameterA. We find that the cross section for the production of these Higgs bosons has a significant dependence on the parameters which determine the chiral mixing in the squark sector. The cross section times the two-photon branching ratio ofh ⁰ is of the order of 15–25 fb in much of the parameter space that remains after imposing the present experimental constraints. For theH ⁰ the two-photon branching ratio is only significant if theH ⁰ is light, but then the cross section times the branching ratio may exceed 200 fb. The QCD corrections due to quark loop contributions are known to increase the cross section by 50%. We find the dependence of the cross section on the gluon distribution function used to be rather insignificant.     

Heavy SUSY Higgs bosons at e + e − linear colliders

The production mechanisms and decay modes of the heavy neutral and charged Higgs bosons in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model are investigated at future e ⁺ e ^? colliders in the TeV energy regime. We generate supersymmetric particle spectra by requiring the MSSM Higgs potential to produce correct radiative electroweak symmetry breaking, and we assume a common scalar mass m₀, gaugino mass m_1/2 and trilinear coupling A, as well as gauge and Yukawa coupling unification at the Grand Unification scale. Particular emphasis is put on the low tan β solution in this scenario where decays of the Higgs bosons to Standard Model particles compete with decays to supersymmetric charginos/neutralinos as well as sfermions. In the high tan β case, the supersymmetric spectrum is either too heavy or the supersymmetric decay modes are suppressed, since the Higgs bosons decay almost exclusively into b and τ pairs. The main production mechanisms for the heavy Higgs particles are the associated AH production and H ⁺H^? pair production with cross sections of the order of a few fb.     

The higgs boson mass from precision electroweak data

We present a new global fit to precision electroweak data, including new low- and high-energy data and analyzing the radiative corrections arising from the minimal symmetry breaking sectors of the Standard Model (SM) and its supersymmetric extension (MSSM). It is shown that present data favor a Higgs mass ofO(M _z):M _H=76 _?50 ⁺¹⁵² GeV. We confront our analysis with (meta) stability and perturbative bounds on the SM Higgs mass, and the theoretical upper bound on the MSSM Higgs mass. Present data do not discriminate significantly between the SM and MSSM Higgs mass ranges. We comment in passing on the sensitivity of the Higgs mass determination to the values ofα(M _z) andα _s(M _z).     

The Bethe-Salpeter equation with fermions

The Bethe-Salpeter (BS) equation in the ladder approximation is studied within a fermion theory: two fermion fields (constituents) with mass m interacting via an exchange of a scalar field with mass μ. The BS equation can be written in the form of an integral equation in the configuration Euclidean x-space with the symmetric kernel K for which Tr K ² = ∞ due to the singular character of the fermion propagator. This kernel is represented in the form K = K ₀ + K _I . The operator K ₀ with Tr K ₀ ² = ∞ is of the “fall at the center” potential type and describes a continuous spectrum only. Besides the presence of this operator leads to a restriction on the value of the coupling constant. The kernel K _I with Tr K _I ² < ∞ is responsible for bound fermion-fermion states. Our approach is that the eigenvalue problem of the equation $\Lambda\Psi = g^2(K_0 + K_I)\Psi \qquad {\rm with}\qquad \Lambda = 1The Bethe-Salpeter (BS) equation in the ladder approximation is studied within a fermion theory: two fermion fields (constituents) with mass m interacting via an exchange of a scalar field with mass μ. The BS equation can be written in the form of an integral equation in the configuration Euclidean x-space with the symmetric kernel K for which Tr K ² = ∞ due to the singular character of the fermion propagator. This kernel is represented in the form K = K ₀ + K _I . The operator K ₀ with Tr K ₀ ² = ∞ is of the “fall at the center” potential type and describes a continuous spectrum only. Besides the presence of this operator leads to a restriction on the value of the coupling constant. The kernel K _I with Tr K _I ² < ∞ is responsible for bound fermion-fermion states. Our approach is that the eigenvalue problem of the equation can be rewritten in the form The kernel of the last equation is finite for g ² < g _c ² and the variational procedure of calculations of eigenvalues and eigenfunctions can be applied. The quantum pseudoscalar and scalar mesodynamics is considered. The binding energy of the state 1⁺ (deuteron) as a function of the coupling constant is calculated in the framework of the procedure formulated above. It is shown that this bound state is absent in the pseudoscalar mesodynamics and does exist in the scalar mesodynamics. A comparison with the non-relativistic Schr?dinger picture is made. Correspondence: G. V. Efimov, Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, 141980 Dubna, Russia     

Fermion mass hierarchy based onN=8 supergravity

A possible mechanism is proposed to realize fermion mass hierarchy based on the superunification model of Ellis et al. In addition to the usual fermion (F)—Higgs (B) coupling, “non-renormalizable” interactions such as(1/(M _p ) ⁿ )(F) ² (B) ⁿ⁺¹ are introduced. It is assumed that three kinds of Higgs scalars respectively develop v.e.v. of orderM _P ,M _X andM _W , corresponding to the symmetry breaking pattern ofSU(8)→SU(5)→SU(3)×SU(3)×U(1)→SU(3)×U(1). As a result, fermions acquire their masses of orderM _w ,M _W (M _X /M _P) andM _W (M _X /M _P )². An example of the model is presented which shows nice feature of hierarchical mass patterns.     

WW collisions from polarized electron or proton beams,polarized luminosities and applications

A complete formulation of Vector boson-Vector boson processes ine ⁺ e ^?,pp andep collisions is done including Parity violation and beam polarization effects. Single vector boson (W ^±,Z, ψ) distributions inside leptons, quarks and proton as well as luminosity factors and polarization asymmetry factors are established for all (parity conserving and parity violating) helicity combinations. First applications are given for single particle (Higgs,Z′) production, for vector boson-vector boson scattering and for heavy fermion pair production.