No Arabic abstract
In this paper, we establish a fully string-theoretic framework for calculating one-loop Higgs masses directly from first principles in perturbative closed string theories. Our framework makes no assumptions other than worldsheet modular invariance and is therefore applicable to all closed strings, regardless of the specific string construction utilized. This framework can also be employed even when spacetime supersymmetry is broken (and even when this breaking occurs at the Planck scale), and can be utilized for all scalar Higgs fields, regardless of the particular gauge symmetries they break. This therefore includes the Higgs field responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking in the Standard Model. Notably, using our framework, we demonstrate that a gravitational modular anomaly generically relates the Higgs mass to the one-loop cosmological constant, thereby yielding a string-theoretic connection between the two fundamental quantities which are known to suffer from hierarchy problems in the absence of spacetime supersymmetry. We also discuss a number of crucial issues involving the use and interpretation of regulators in UV/IR-mixed theories such as string theory, and the manner in which one can extract an EFT description from such theories. Finally, we analyze the running of the Higgs mass within such an EFT description, and uncover the existence of a dual IR region which emerges at high energies as the consequence of an intriguing scale-inversion duality symmetry. We also identify a generic stringy effective potential for the Higgs fields in such theories. Our results can therefore serve as the launching point for a rigorous investigation of gauge hierarchy problems in string theory.
Predictions for the scale of SUSY breaking from the string landscape go back at least a decade to the work of Denef and Douglas on the statistics of flux vacua. The assumption that an assortment of SUSY breaking F and D terms are present in the hidden sector, and their values are uniformly distributed in the landscape of D=4, N=1 effective supergravity models, leads to the expectation that the landscape pulls towards large values of soft terms favored by a power law behavior P(m(soft))~ m(soft)^n. On the other hand, similar to Weinbergs prediction of the cosmological constant, one can assume an anthropic selection of weak scales not too far from the measured value characterized by m(W,Z,h)~ 100 GeV. Working within a fertile patch of gravity-mediated low energy effective theories where the superpotential mu term is << m(3/2), as occurs in models such as radiative breaking of Peccei-Quinn symmetry, this biases statistical distributions on the landscape by a cutoff on the parameter Delta(EW), which measures fine-tuning in the m(Z)-mu mass relation. The combined effect of statistical and anthropic pulls turns out to favor low energy phenomenology that is more or less agnostic to UV physics. While a uniform selection n=0 of soft terms produces too low a value for m(h), taking n=1 or 2 produce most probabilistically m(h)~125 GeV for negative trilinear terms. For n>=1, there is a pull towards split generations with m(squarks,sleptons)(1,2)~10-30 TeV whilst m(t1)~ 1-2 TeV. The most probable gluino mass comes in at ~ 3-4 TeV--apparently beyond the reach of HL-LHC (although the required quasi-degenerate higgsinos should still be within reach). We comment on consequences for SUSY collider and dark matter searches.
Recently it has been recognized that in compactified string/M-theories that satisfy cosmological constraints, it is possible to derive some robust and generic predictions for particle physics and cosmology with very mild assumptions. When the matter and gauge content below the compactification scale is that of the MSSM, it is possible to make precise predictions. In this case, we predict that there will be a single Standard Model-like Higgs boson with a calculable mass 105 GeV $lesssim M_h lesssim$ 129 GeV depending on tan beta (the ratio of the Higgs vevs in the MSSM). For tan beta > 7, the prediction is : 122 GeV $lesssim M_h lesssim$ 129 GeV.
Using string scattering amplitudes of open bosonic string on a single $D$-brane, we construct a local field theoretical action for tachyon fields. Cubic local interactions between various particles, belonging to the particle spectrum of string may be directly followed from three-string scattering amplitude. These cubic local interactions may generate perturbative non-local four-particle interactions, which may contribute to four-string scattering amplitude. It was observed that tachyon field in open bosonic string theory must be represented by a complex field in order to reproduce the Veneziano amplitude, describing four-tachyon scattering. The Veneziano amplitude, expanded in terms of $s$-channel poles was compared with the four-tachyon scattering amplitudes in $s$-channel generated perturbatively and it was found that a quartic potential term is needed in the local field theoretical action, which describes open string theory effectively in the low energy regime. With this quartic term, the tachyon potential has a stable minimum point and the tachyon field may condensate. As a result, both tachyon and gauge fields become massive at Planck scale and completely disappear from the low energy particle spectrum.
Kaluza-Klein compactifications of higher dimensional Yang-Mills theories contain a number of four dimensional scalars corresponding to the internal components of the gauge field. While at tree-level the scalar zero modes are massless, it is well known that quantum corrections make them massive. We compute these radiative corrections at 1-loop in an effective field theory framework, using the background field method and proper Schwinger-time regularization. In order to clarify the proper treatment of the sum over KK--modes in the effective field theory approach, we consider the same problem in two different UV completions of Yang-Mills: string theory and lattice field theory. In both cases, when the compactification radius $R$ is much bigger than the scale of the UV completion ($R gg sqrt{alpha},a$), we recover a mass renormalization that is independent of the UV scale and agrees with the one derived in the effective field theory approach. These results support the idea that the value of the mass corrections is, in this regime, universal for any UV completion that respects locality and gauge invariance. The string analysis suggests that this property holds also at higher loops. The lattice analysis suggests that the mass of the adjoint scalars appearing in $mathcal N=2,4$ Super Yang-Mills is highly suppressed due to an interplay between the higher-dimensional gauge invariance and the degeneracy of bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom.
We study the instability of the Higgs vacuum caused by a cloud of strings. By catalysis, the decay rate of the vacuum is highly enhanced and, when the energy density of the cloud is larger than the critical value, a semi-classical vacuum decay occurs. We also discuss the relation between the string cloud and observational constraints on the cosmic strings from the viewpoint of the catalysis, which are converted into bounds on the parameters of the Higgs potential.