Exploring models for new physics on the lattice

Abstract

Strongly-coupled gauge theories are an important ingredient in the construction of many extensions of the standard model, particularly for models of electroweak symmetry breaking in which the Higgs boson is a composite object. There is a large parameter space of such gauge theories with a rich phase structure, particularly in the presence of large numbers of fermionic degrees of freedom. Lattice simulation provides a non-perturbative way to explore this space of strongly-coupled theories, and to search for interesting dynamical features. Here I review recent progress in the simulation of such theories, with an eye towards applications to dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking.