Related papers: Naturalness: A Snowmass White Paper
The cosmological constant problem is one of the greatest challenges in contemporary physics, since it is deeply rooted in the problematic interplay between quantum fields and gravity. The aim of this work is to review the key conceptual…
We consider some questions of naturalness which arise when one considers conventional field theories in the presence of gravitation: the problem of global symmetries, the strong CP problem, and the cosmological constant problem. Using…
1. Why we do Believe in the Standard Model 2. Why we do not Believe in the Standard Model 2.1 Conceptual Problems 2.2 Hints from Experiment 2.2.1 Unification of Couplings 2.2.2 Dark Matter 2.2.3 Neutrino Masses 2.2.4 Baryogenesis 3. Status…
According to general relativity, the present analysis shows on geometrical grounds that the cosmological constant problem is an artifact due to the unfounded link of this fundamental constant to vacuum energy density of quantum…
A cosmological model of dark energy interacting with dark matter and another general component of the universe is considered. The evolution equations for coincidence parameters r and s, which represent the ratios between the dark energy and…
Over the past few decades, astronomical and cosmological data sets firmly established the existence of physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics by providing strong evidence for the existence of dark matter, dark energy, and…
In this thesis we study top-condensation models of electroweak symmetry breaking. In particular we investigate a scenario in which the CP symmetry is broken spontaneously due to the same condensates responsible of electroweak symmetry…
Cosmological relaxation of the electroweak scale is an attractive scenario addressing the gauge hierarchy problem. Its main actor, the relaxion, is a light spin-zero field which dynamically relaxes the Higgs mass with respect to its natural…
There is now strong evidence that the current energy density of the Universe is dominated by dark energy with an equation of state w<-1/3, which is causing accelerated expansion. The build-up of structure within such Universes is subject to…
Constraints from precision electroweak measurements reveal no evidence for new physics up to 5 - 7 TeV, whereas naturalness requires new particles at around 1 TeV to address the stability of the electroweak scale. We show that this "little…
We briefly discuss five topics in Precision Electroweak Physics: i) the recently proposed Effective Scheme of Renormalization, ii) evidence for electroweak bosonic corrections derived from the radiative correction Delta_r_eff, iii) an…
The famous three-body problem is investigated by means of a numerical approach with negligible numerical noises in a long enough time interval, namely the Clean Numerical Simulation (CNS). From physical viewpoints, position of any bodies…
We have found that the hierarchial problems appearing in cosmology is a manifestation of the quantum nature of the universe. The universe is still described by the same formulae that once hold at Planck's time. The universe is found to be…
The smallness of the cosmological constant is one of the basic problems in particle physics and cosmology. Various attempts have been made to explain this mystery, but no satisfactory solution has been found yet. The appearance of extra…
The problem of making predictions from theories that have landscapes of possible low energy parameters is reviewed. Conditions for such a theory to yield falsifiable predictions for doable experiments are given. It is shown that the…
I quickly review the successes of quantum chromodynamics. Then I assess the current state of the electroweak theory, making brief comments about the search for the Higgs boson and some of the open issues for the theory. I sketch the…
Cosmological data suggest that we live in an interesting period in the history of the universe when \rho_\Lambda \sim \rho_M \sim \rho_R. The occurence of any epoch with such a "triple coincidence" is puzzling, while the question of why we…
Varying physical constant cosmologies were claimed to solve standard cosmological problems such as the horizon, the flatness and the $\Lambda$-problem. In this paper, we suggest yet another possible application of these theories: solving…
We review the current status of cosmological parameters, dark energy and large-scale structure, from a theoretical and observational perspective. We first present the basic cosmological parameters and discuss how they are measured with…
The past few years have seen dramatic breakthroughs and spectacular and puzzling discoveries in astrophysics and cosmology. In many cases, the new observations can only be explained with the introduction of new fundamental physics. Here we…