The minimal moose for a little Higgs

Abstract

Recently a new class of theories of electroweak symmetry breaking have been constructed. These models, based on deconstruction and the physics of theory space, provide the first alternative to weak-scale supersymmetry with naturally light Higgs fields and perturbative new physics at the TeV scale. The Higgs is light because it is a pseudoGoldstone boson, and the quadratically divergent contributions to the Higgs mass are cancelled by new TeV scale "partners" of the same statistics. In this paper we present the minimal theory space model of electroweak symmetry breaking, with two sites and four link fields, and the minimal set of fermions. There are very few parameters and degrees of freedom beyond the Standard Model. Below a TeV, we have the Standard Model with two light Higgs doublets, and an additional complex scalar weak triplet and singlet. At the TeV scale, the new particles that cancel the 1-loop quadratic divergences in the Higgs mass are revealed. The entire Higgs potential needed for electroweak symmetry breaking - the quartic couplings as well as the familiar negative mass squared - can be generated by the top Yukawa coupling, providing a novel link between the physics of flavor and electroweak symmetry breaking. © SISSA/ISAS 2002.