English

Which fine-tuning arguments are fine?

History and Philosophy of Physics 2017-01-23 v1 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

The argument from naturalness is widely employed in contemporary quantum field theory. Essentially a formalized aesthetic criterion, it received a meaning in the debate on the Higgs mechanism, which goes beyond aesthetics. We follow the history of technical definitions of fine tuning at the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking. It is argued that they give rise to a special interpretation of probability, which we call Gedankenfrequency. By extension of its original meaning, the argument from naturalness is used to compare different models beyond the Standard Model. We show that in this case naturalness cannot be defined objectively. Rather, it functions as socio-historical heuristics in particle physics and it contributes to the advent of a probabilistic version of Popper's falsificationism.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0903.4055,
  title  = {Which fine-tuning arguments are fine?},
  author = {Alexei Grinbaum},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0903.4055},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

22 pages, 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T12:43:45.027Z