No Arabic abstract
We begin this thesis with an extensive pedagogical introduction aimed at clarifying the foundations of the hierarchy problem. After introducing effective field theory, we discuss renormalization at length from a variety of perspectives. We focus on conceptual understanding and connections between approaches, while providing a plethora of examples for clarity. With that background we can then clearly understand the hierarchy problem, which is reviewed primarily by introducing and refuting common misconceptions thereof. We next discuss some of the beautiful classic frameworks to approach the issue. However, we argue that the LHC data have qualitatively modified the issue into `The Loerarchy Problem---how to generate an IR scale without accompanying visible structure---and we discuss recent work on this approach. In the second half, we present some of our own work in these directions, beginning with explorations of how the Neutral Naturalness approach motivates novel signatures of electroweak naturalness at a variety of physics frontiers. Finally, we propose a New Trail for Naturalness and suggest that the physical breakdown of EFT, which gravity demands, may be responsible for the violation of our EFT expectations at the LHC.
Supersymmetric (SUSY) models, even those described by relatively few parameters, generically allow many possible SUSY particle (sparticle) mass hierarchies. As the sparticle mass hierarchy determines, to a great extent, the collider phenomenology of a model, the enumeration of these hierarchies is of the utmost importance. We therefore provide a readily generalizable procedure for determining the number of sparticle mass hierarchies in a given SUSY model. As an application, we analyze the gravity-mediated SUSY breaking scenario with various combinations of GUT-scale boundary conditions involving different levels of universality among the gaugino and scalar masses. For each of the eight considered models, we provide the complete list of forbidden hierarchies in a compact form. Our main result is that the complete (typically rather large) set of forbidden hierarchies among the eight sparticles considered in this analysis can be fully specified by just a few forbidden relations involving much smaller subsets of sparticles.
We point out that in theories where the gravitino mass, $M_{3/2}$, is in the range (10-50)TeV, with soft-breaking scalar masses and trilinear couplings of the same order, there exists a robust region of parameter space where the conditions for electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) are satisfied without large imposed cancellations. Compactified string/M-theory with stabilized moduli that satisfy cosmological constraints generically require a gravitino mass greater than about 30 TeV and provide the natural explanation for this phenomenon. We find that even though scalar masses and trilinear couplings (and the soft-breaking $B$ parameter) are of order (10-50)TeV, the Higgs vev takes its expected value and the $mu$ parameter is naturally of order a TeV. The mechanism provides a natural solution to the cosmological moduli and gravitino problems with EWSB.
Recently Graham, Kaplan and Rajendran [1] proposed cosmological relaxation as a mechanism for generating a hierarchically small Higgs vacuum expectation value. Inspired by this we collect some thoughts on steps towards a solution to the electroweak hierarchy problem and apply them to the original model of cosmological relaxation [1]. To do so, we study the dynamics of the model and determine the relation between the fundamental input parameters and the electroweak vacuum expectation value. Depending on the input parameters the model exhibits three qualitatively different regimes, two of which allow for hierarchically small Higgs vacuum expectation values. One leads to standard electroweak symmetry breaking whereas in the other regime electroweak symmetry is mainly broken by a Higgs source term. While the latter is not acceptable in a model based on the QCD axion, in non-QCD models this may lead to new and interesting signatures in Higgs observables.
The persistence of the hierarchy problem points to a violation of effective field theory expectations. A compelling possibility is that this results from a physical breakdown of EFT, which may arise from correlations between ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) physics. To this end, we study noncommutative field theory (NCFT) as a toy model of UV/IR mixing which generates an emergent infrared scale from ultraviolet dynamics. We explore the range of such theories where ultraviolet divergences are transmogrified into infrared scales, focusing particularly on the properties of Yukawa theory, where we identify a new infrared pole accessible in the $s$-channel of the Lorentzian theory. We further investigate the interplay between UV-finiteness and UV/IR mixing by studying properties of the softly-broken noncommutative Wess-Zumino model as soft terms are varied relative to the cutoff. While the Lorentz violation inherent to noncommutative theories may limit their direct application to the hierarchy problem, these toy models provide general lessons to guide the realization of UV/IR mixing in more realistic theories.
We review the gauge hierarchy problem in the standard model. We discuss the meaning of the quadratic divergence in terms of the Wilsonian renormalization group. Classical scale symmetry, which prohibits dimensionful parameters in the bare action, could play a key role for the understanding of the origin of the electroweak scale. We discuss the scale-generation mechanism, i.e. scalegenesis in scale invariant theories. In this paper, we introduce a scale invariant extension of the SM based on a strongly interacting scalar-gauge theory. It is discussed that asymptotically safe quantum gravity provides a hint about solutions to the gauge hierarchy problem.