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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…
We study the 3d effective field theory of a weakly coupled two Higgs-doublet scalar model at high temperature. Our model has three scalar quartic couplings and an $O(4)$ symmetry which is spontaneously broken by a nonzero scalar field $vev$…
I introduce the idea of "Custodial Naturalness" to explain the origin of the electroweak (EW) scale hierarchy. Custodial Naturalness is based on classical scale invariance as well as an extension of the Standard Model (SM) scalar sector…
It has been argued that any primordial B+L asymmetry existing at very high temperatures can be subsequently erased by anomalous electroweak effects. We argue that this is not necessarily the case in the supersymmetric standard model…
We study the dynamics of electroweak symmetry-breaking in an extension of the Standard Model where the Higgs sector is augmented by the addition of a real (Y = 0) isospin triplet. We show that this scenario exhibits a novel, two-step…
Electroweak symmetry breaking may be naturally induced by the observed quark and gauge fields in extra dimensions without a fundamental Higgs field. We show that a composite Higgs doublet can arise as a bound state of $(t, b)_L$ and a…
We consider a minimal classically scale-invariant extension of the Standard Model. In this theory, the Higgs mechanism is triggered and the electroweak symmetry breaking is generated radiatively by the Coleman-Weinberg sector which is…
Within the Standard Model, the current Higgs and top quark data favor metastability of the electroweak vacuum, although the uncertainties are still significant. The true vacuum is many orders of magnitude deeper than ours and the barrier…
Scenarios in which the Higgs vacuum arises radiatively and is separated from the origin by a potential barrier at zero temperature are known to be attainable in models with extra singlet scalars, which in the limit of zero barrier height…
The calculation of finite temperature contributions to the scalar potential in a quantum field theory is similar to the calculation of loop corrections at zero temperature. In natural extensions of the Standard Model where loop corrections…
The Principle of Naturalness of small parameters of a theory is reviewed. While quantum field theories constructed from gauge fields and fermions only are natural, those containing elementary scalar fields are not. In particular the Higgs…
Models of Dark Matter must contend with the fact that the presence of electroweak symmetry breaking along the thermal evolution of the Universe modifies the masses, interactions and, thus, the thermally averaged cross sections. We study in…
In this set of four lectures I will discuss some aspects of the Standard Model (SM) as a quantum field theory and related phenomenological observations which have played a crucial role in establishing the $SU(2)_{L} \times U(1)_{Y}$ gauge…
Results from helically symmetric scalar field models and first results from a convergent helically symmetric binary neutron star code are reported here; these are models stationary in the rotating frame of a source with constant angular…
The standard requirement for the production of baryons at the electroweak phase transition, that the phase transition be first order and the sphaleron bound be satisfied, is predicated on the assumption of a radiation dominated universe at…
Two paradigms for the origin of electroweak superconductivity are a weakly coupled scalar condensate, and a strongly coupled fermion condensate. The former suffers from a finetuning problem unless there are cancelations to radiative…
The top quark may get its mass not from a fundamental scalar but a Nambu-Jona-Lasinio mechanism involving a strongly coupled gauge sector that triggers top-quark condensation. Forbidding a large hierarchy in the gap equation implies that…
If the Standard Model (SM) is an effective theory, as currently believed, it is valid up to some energy scale $\Lambda$ to which the Higgs vacuum expectation value is sensitive throughout radiative quadratic terms. The latter ones…
We derive an effective dimensionally reduced theory for the Standard Model augmented by a real singlet scalar. We treat the singlet as a superheavy field and integrate it out, leaving an effective theory involving only the Higgs and…
Our Universe is ruled by quantum mechanics and its extension Quantum Field Theory (QFT). However, the explanations for a number of cosmological phenomena such as inflation, dark energy, symmetry breakings, and phase transitions need the…