Related papers: The Electroweak Symmetry Breaking Riddle
This set of lectures provides an elementary introduction to the standard electroweak theory, followed by a detailed discussion of its experimental tests. We then consider the conceptual limitations of the Standard Model and briefly review…
The Standard Model of fundamental interactions, albeit an incredibly elegant and successful theory, lacks explanations for some experimental and theoretical open questions. Interestingly, many of these problems seem to be related to the…
The first LHC results at 7-8 TeV, with the discovery of a candidate Higgs boson and the non observation of new particles or exotic phenomena, have made a big step towards completing the experimental confirmation of the Standard Model (SM)…
Little Higgs models are an interesting extension of the Standard Model at the TeV scale. They provide a simple and attractive mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking. We review one of the simplest models of this class, the Littlest Higgs…
One of the major goal of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is to probe the electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism and the generation of the masses of the elementary particles. We review the physics of the Higgs sector in the Standard Model.…
Weak-scale supersymmetry is a well motivated, if speculative, theory beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. It solves the thorny issue of the Higgs mass, namely: how can it be stable to quantum corrections, when they are expected to…
While the LHC takes on the challenge of experimentally exploring the electroweak symmetry breaking sector, it is not only interesting but also crucial to explore alternatives to the Standard Model scenario with an elementary scalar Higgs…
Current experimental limits for new physics beyond the Standard Model and hints for deviations from Standard Model expectations will be reviewed, highlighting recent results. Possible signals that will be discussed include Higgs bosons,…
We review the theoretical underpinning of the Higgs mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking and the experimental status of Higgs measurements from a pedagogical perspective. The possibilities and motivations for new physics in the…
I present a brief overview of some exciting possibilities for physics Beyond the Standard Model. I include short discussions of neutrino physics, the strong CP problem and axions, GUTs, large and warped extra dimensions, Little Higgs models…
Physics beyond the Standard Model can manifest itself as both new light states and heavy degrees of freedom. In this paper, we assume that the former comprise only a sterile neutrino, $N$. Therefore, the most agnostic description of the new…
Both Little Higgs and Higgsless Models provide new windows into the mysteries of electroweak symmetry breaking and lead to testable predictions at present and future colliders. Here we give a quick overview of three papers submitted to the…
The measurement of the Higgs mass at the LHC has confirmed that the Standard Model electroweak vacuum is a shallow local minimum and is not absolutely stable. In addition to a probable unacceptably fast tunneling to the deep true minimum,…
The recent announcement of a discovery of a possible Higgs-like particle -its spin and parity is yet to be determined- at the LHC with a mass of 126 GeV necessitates a fresh look at the nature of the electroweak symmetry breaking, in…
The search for the weakly-coupled Higgs sector at future colliders consists of three phases: discovery of a Higgs candidate, verification of the Higgs interpretation of the signal, and precision measurements of Higgs sector properties. The…
We present a concise outlook of particle physics after the first LHC results at 7-8 TeV. The discovery of the Higgs boson at 126 GeV will remain as one of the major physics discoveries of our time. But also the surprising absence of any…
Little Higgs models represent an alternative to Supersymmetry as a solution to the Hierarchy Problem. After introducing the main physical ideas of these models, we present the fine-tuning associated to the electroweak breaking in Little…
The discovery of the Higgs boson is a major milestone in our progress toward understanding the natural world. A particular aim of this article is to show how diverse ideas came together in the conception of electroweak symmetry breaking…
A Higgs-compatible boson has been observed at the LHC at CERN. We briefly review the role of the Higgs in particle physics and describe some of the current challenges in understanding the fundamental structure of the universe. Is there…
Is the weak scale natural? This ever pending question makes the search for new particle production a highly motivated primary goal of the next LHC phase. These searches may or may not be successful. While waiting for a needed higher energy…