Related papers: Which fine-tuning arguments are fine?
With the discovery of a particle that seems rather consistent with the minimal Standard Model Higgs boson, attention turns to questions of naturalness, fine-tuning, and what they imply for physics beyond the Standard Model and its discovery…
A well-known topic within the philosophy of physics is the problem of fine-tuning: the fact that the universal constants seem to take non-arbitrary values in order for live to thrive in our Universe. In this paper we will talk about this…
We critically analyze the rationale of arguments from finetuning and naturalness in particle physics and cosmology. Some other numerological coincidences are also discussed.
The Higgs naturalness principle served as the basis for the so far failed prediction that signatures of physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) would be discovered at the LHC. One influential formulation of the principle, which prohibits…
Finetuning and Naturalness are extra-empirical theory assessments that reflect our expectation how scientific theories should provide an intuitive understanding about the foundations underlying the observed phenomena. Recently, the absence…
Fine-tuning in physics and cosmology is often used as evidence that a theory is incomplete. For example, the parameters of the standard model of particle physics are "unnaturally" small (in various technical senses), which has driven much…
Naturalness has for many years been a guiding principle in the search for physics beyond the Standard Model, particularly for understanding the physics of electroweak symmetry breaking. However, the discovery of the Higgs particle at 125…
The apparent fine-tuning of several fundamental parameters that determine the properties of our Universe and make it hospitable to life is sometimes used as an argument for God from design. I review the concept of cosmic fine-tuning and…
With the Higgs boson discovery and no new physics found at the LHC, confidence in Naturalness as a guiding principle for particle physics is under increased pressure. We wait to see if it proves its mettle in the LHC upgrades ahead, and…
The idea of naturalness, as originally conceived, refers only to the finite renormalization of the Higgs boson mass induced by the introduction of heavier states. In this respect, naturalness is still a powerful heuristic principle in model…
We present a radically new proposal for the solution of the naturalness/hierarchy problem, where the fine-tuning of the Higgs mass finds its physical explanation and the well-known multiplicative renormalization of the usual perturbative…
The cosmological constant problem and the absence of new natural physics at the electroweak scale, if confirmed by the LHC, may either indicate that the nature is fine-tuned or that a refined notion of naturalness is required. We construct…
The naturalness principle has long guided efforts to understand physics beyond the Standard Model, with the hierarchy problem as the central issue. We revisit the role of quantum corrections in the fine-tuning of the low-energy effective…
Motivated by LHC results, we modify the usual criterion for naturalness by ignoring the uncomputable power divergences. The Standard Model satisfies the modified criterion ('finite naturalness') for the measured values of its parameters.…
High energy physics features many ingenious tools for extracting finite results from formally divergent expressions. This brief note argues from a new perspective that all such formal infinities are meaningful markers of new physics. As…
We provide novel, metatheoretical arguments strengthening the position that the naturalness problem of the light Higgs mass is a pseudo-problem: No physics beyond the standard model of particle physics is needed to explain the small value…
When a physicist says that a theory is fine-tuned, they mean that it must make a suspiciously precise assumption in order to explain a certain observation. This is evidence that the theory is deficient or incomplete. One particular case of…
We examine the fine-tuning associated to electroweak breaking in Little Higgs scenarios and find it to be always substantial and, generically, much higher than suggested by the rough estimates usually made. This is due to implicit tunings…
I assess various proposals for the source of the intuition that there is something problematic about contextuality, ultimately concluding that contextuality is best thought of in terms of fine-tuning. I then argue that as with other…
Fine-tuning criteria are frequently used to place upper limits on the masses of superpartners in supersymmetric extensions of the standard model. However, commonly used prescriptions for quantifying naturalness have some important…