Related papers: Stabilization of the Electroweak String by the Bos…
A long-standing puzzle about the heterotic string has been what happens when an instanton shrinks to zero size. It is argued here that the answer at the quantum level is that an extra $SU(2)$ gauge symmetry appears that is supported in the…
We consider open strings in an external constant magnetic field $H$. For an (infinite) sequence of critical values of $H$ an increasing number of (highest spin component) states lying on the first Regge trajectory becomes tachyonic. In the…
The stability of the Standard Model is determined by the true minimum of the effective Higgs potential. We show that the potential at its minimum when computed by the traditional method is strongly dependent on the gauge parameter. It…
We present a detailed analysis of classical solutions in the bosonic sector of the electroweak theory which describe vortices carrying a constant electric current ${\cal I}$. These vortices exist for any value of the Higgs boson mass and…
Standard theories of electroweak interactions are based on the concept of a gauge symmetry broken by the Higgs mechanism. If they are placed in an environment with a sufficiently high temperature, the symmetry gets restored. It turns out…
The measured values of the Standard Model (SM) parameters favors a shallow metastable electroweak (EW) vacuum surrounded by a deep global AdS or a runaway Minkowski minimum. Furthermore, fine-tuning is the only explanation for the Higgs…
We present an economical theory of natural electroweak symmetry breaking, generalizing an approach based on deconstruction. This theory is the smallest extension of the Standard Model to date that stabilizes the electroweak scale with a…
String representation of the $[U(1)]^{N-1}$ gauge-invariant dual Abelian-Higgs-type theory, which is relevant to the SU(N)-QCD with the $\Theta$-term and provides confinement of quarks, is derived. The N-dependence of the Higgs vacuum…
We discuss the stability of an electroweak string with axions in its core, which give to the configuration a quasi-topological property, and compare it with other modifications using instantons in the thin wall approximation.
We demonstrate the stability under subsequent-to-leading logarithm corrections of the quartic scalar-field coupling constant $\lambda$ and the running Higgs boson mass obtained from the (initially massless) effective potential for…
We consider the possibility that the gauge hierarchy is a byproduct of the metastability of the electroweak vacuum, i.e., that whatever mechanism is responsible for the latter also sets the running Higgs mass to a value smaller than its…
I describe, from the bottom up, a sequence of natural effective field theories. Below a TeV we have the minimal standard model with a light Higgs, and an extra neutral scalar. In the 1-10 TeV region these scalars are part of a multiplet of…
We study linked loops of string in the presence of bosonic condensates and fermionic zero modes on the strings. We find that the strings necessarily carry a current if the bosons have an Aharanov-Bohm interaction with the string. The…
We propose a new dynamical relaxation mechanism of the little hierarchy problem, based on a singlet extension of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM). In this scenario, the small soft mass parameter of an MSSM singlet is…
We show that, for all values of $Tan \beta$ and the light right-handed stop mass for which the electroweak phase transition is strong enough to avoid washout following electroweak baryogenesis, the electroweak vacuum is stable over the…
We investigate the stability of Higgs potential in inverse seesaw models. We derive the full two-loop RGEs of the relevant parameters, such as the quartic Higgs self-coupling, taking thresholds into account. We find that for relatively…
A generic lesson of string theory is that the coupling constants of an effective low energy theory are determined by the vacuum values of a set of fields - the so-called moduli - some of which are stabilized at relatively low masses by…
We study the connection between $N=2$ supersymmetry and a topological bound in a two-Higgs-doublet system with an $SU(2)\times U(1)_Y\times U(1)_{Y^{\prime}}$ gauge group. We derive the Bogomol'nyi equations from supersymmetry…
Semilocal strings are vortices in the extended Abelian-Higgs model with two complex Higgs scalar fields among which a global $SU(2)$ symmetry acts. They are known to be stable (unstable against expansion) in type-I (II) superconductors, in…
If the Higgs mass m_H is as low as suggested by present experimental information, the Standard Model ground state might not be absolutely stable. We present a detailed analysis of the lower bounds on m_H imposed by the requirement that the…