No Arabic abstract
We demonstrate how residual flavour symmetries, infrared signatures of symmetry breaking in complete models of flavour, can naturally forbid (or limit in a flavour specific way) flavour-changing neutral currents (FCNC) in multi-Higgs-doublet models (MHDM) without using mass hierarchies. We first review how this model-independent mechanism can control the fermionic mixing patterns of the Standard Model, and then implement the symmetries in the Yukawa sector of MHDM, which allows us to intimately connect the predictivity of a given flavour model with its ability to sequester FCNC. Finally, after discussing various subtleties of the approach, we sketch an $A_4$ toy model that realises an explicit example of these simplified constructions.
N-Higgs doublet models (NHDM) are a popular framework to construct electroweak symmetry breaking mechanisms beyond the Standard model. Usually, one builds an NHDM scalar sector which is invariant under a certain symmetry group. Although several such groups have been used, no general analysis of symmetries possible in the NHDM scalar sector exists. Here, we make the first step towards this goal by classifying the elementary building blocks, namely the abelian symmetry groups, with a special emphasis on finite groups. We describe a strategy that identifies all abelian groups which are realizable as symmetry groups of the NHDM Higgs potential. We consider both the groups of Higgs-family transformations only and the groups which also contain generalized CP transformations. We illustrate this strategy with the examples of 3HDM and 4HDM and prove several statements for arbitrary N.
We discuss the classification of symmetries and the corresponding symmetry groups in the two-Higgs-doublet model (THDM). We give an easily useable method how to determine the symmetry class and corresponding symmetry group of a given THDM Higgs potential. One of the symmetry classes corresponds to a Higgs potential with several simultaneous generalised CP symmetries. Extending the CP symmetry of this class to the Yukawa sector in a straightforward way, the so-called maximally-CP-symmetric model (MCPM) is obtained. We study the evolution of the quartic Higgs-potential parameters under a change of renormalisation point. Finally we compute the so called oblique parameters S, T, and U, in the MCPM and we identify large regions of viable parameter space with respect to electroweak precision measurements. We present the corresponding allowed regions for the masses of the physical Higgs bosons. Reasonable ranges for these masses, up to several hundred GeV, are obtained which should make the (extra) Higgs bosons detectable in LHC experiments.
In many models, stability of dark matter particles is protected by a conserved Z_2 quantum number. However dark matter can be stabilized by other discrete symmetry groups, and examples of such models with custom-tailored field content have been proposed. Here we show that electroweak symmetry breaking models with N Higgs doublets can readily accommodate scalar dark matter candidates stabilized by groups Z_p with any $p le 2^{N-1}$, leading to a variety of kinds of microscopic dynamics in the dark sector. We give examples in which semi-annihilation or multiple semi-annihilation processes are allowed or forbidden, which can be especially interesting in the case of asymmetric dark matter.
We present general expressions for the oblique parameters S, T, U, V, W, and X in the SU(2)xU(1) electroweak model with an arbitrary number of scalar SU(2) doublets, with hypercharge 1/2, and an arbitrary number of scalar SU(2) singlets.
We derive a general expression for Delta rho (or, equivalently, for the oblique parameter T) in the SU(2) x U(1) electroweak model with an arbitrary number of scalar SU(2) doublets, with hypercharge +-1/2, and an arbitrary number of scalar SU(2) singlets. The experimental bound on Delta rho constitutes a strong constraint on the masses and mixings of the scalar particles in that model.