Status of effective potential calculations

We review various effective potential methods which have been useful to compute the Higgs mass spectrum and couplings of the minimal supersymmetric standard model. We compare results where all-loop next-to-leading-log corrections are resummed by the renormalization group, with those where just the leading-log corrections are kept. Pole masses are obtained from running masses by addition of convenient self-energy diagrams. Approximate analytical expressions are worked out, providing an excellent approximation to the numerical results which include all next-to-leading-log terms. An appropriate treatment of squark decoupling allows to consider large values of the stop and/or sbottom mixing parameters and thus fix a reliable upper bound on the mass of the lightest CP-even Higgs boson mass.Comment: 10 pages, latex + psfig.sty, 6 figures uuencoded. Based on talk given at the SUSY-95 International Workshop on Supersymmetry and Unification of Fundamental Interactions, 15-19 May 199

Split extended supersymmetry from intersecting branes

We study string realizations of split extended supersymmetry, recently proposed in hep-ph/0507192. Supersymmetry is broken by small ($\epsilon$) deformations of intersection angles of $D$-branes giving tree-level masses of order $m_0^2\sim \epsilon M_s^2$, where $M_s$ is the string scale, to localized scalars. We show through an explicit one-loop string amplitude computation that gauginos acquire hierarchically smaller Dirac masses $m_{1/2}^D \sim m_0^2/M_s$. We also evaluate the one-loop Higgsino mass, $\mu$, and show that, in the absence of tree-level contributions, it behaves as $\mu\sim m_0^4/M_s^3$. Finally we discuss an alternative suppression of scales using large extra dimensions. The latter is illustrated, for the case where the gauge bosons appear in N=4 representations, by an explicit string model with Standard Model gauge group, three generations of quarks and leptons and gauge coupling unification.Comment: 32 pages, 3 figure

Bounds on the Higgs mass in the Standard Model and the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model

Depending on the Higgs-boson and top-quark masses, $M_H$ and $M_t$, the effective potential of the {\bf Standard Model} can develop a non-standard minimum for values of the field much larger than the weak scale. In those cases the standard minimum becomes metastable and the possibility of decay to the non-standard one arises. Comparison of the decay rate to the non-standard minimum at finite (and zero) temperature with the corresponding expansion rate of the Universe allows to identify the region, in the ($M_H$, $M_t$) plane, where the Higgs field is sitting at the standard electroweak minimum. In the {\bf Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model}, approximate analytical expressions for the Higgs mass spectrum and couplings are worked out, providing an excellent approximation to the numerical results which include all next-to-leading-log corrections. An appropriate treatment of squark decoupling allows to consider large values of the stop and/or sbottom mixing parameters and thus fix a reliable upper bound on the mass of the lightest CP-even Higgs boson mass. The discovery of the Higgs boson at LEP~2 might put an upper bound (below the Planck scale) on the scale of new physics $\Lambda$ and eventually disentangle between the Standard Model and the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.Comment: 13 pages, latex + sprocl + psfig.sty, 6 uuencoded figures. Based on talk given at the International Workshop on Elementary Particle Physics: Present and Future, Valencia, June 5 to 9, 199

The Lightest Higgs Boson Mass in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model

We compute the upper bound on the mass of the lightest Higgs boson in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model in a model-independent way, including leading (one-loop) and next-to-leading order (two-loop) radiative corrections. We find that (contrary to some recent claims) the two-loop corrections are negative with respect to the one-loop result and relatively small (\simlt 3\%). After defining physical (pole) top quark mass $M_t$, by including QCD self-energies, and physical Higgs mass $M_H$, by including the electroweak self-energies $\Pi\left(M_H^2\right)-\Pi(0)$, we obtain the upper limit on $M_H$ as a function of supersymmetric parameters. We include as supersymmetric parameters the scale of supersymmetry breaking $M_S$, the value of $\tan \beta$ and the mixing between stops $X_t= A_t + \mu \cot\beta$ (which is responsible for the threshold correction on the Higgs quartic coupling). Our results do not depend on further details of the supersymmetric model. In particular, for $M_S\leq 1$ TeV, maximal threshold effect $X_t^2=6M_S^2$ and any value of $\tan\beta$, we find $M_H\leq 140$ GeV for $M_t\leq 190$ GeV. In the particular scenario where the top is in its infrared fixed point we find $M_H\leq 86$ GeV for $M_t = 170$ GeV.Comment: 24 pages + 15 figures in one compressed uuencoded tarred postscript file (The figures can be obtained by e-mail from [email protected]; also, the whole postscript file of the text including the figures can be obtained by ANONYMOUS FTP from ROCA.CSIC.ES (161.111.20.20) at the directory HEP the file being HIGGS.PS: just type GET HEP/HIGGS.PS), Latex, CERN-TH.7334/9

Some Cosmological Implications of Hidden Sectors

We discuss some cosmological implications of extensions of the Standard Model with hidden sector scalars coupled to the Higgs boson. We put special emphasis on the conformal case, in which the electroweak symmetry is broken radiatively with a Higgs mass above the experimental limit. Our refined analysis of the electroweak phase transition in this kind of models strengthens the prediction of a strongly first-order phase transition as required by electroweak baryogenesis. We further study gravitational wave production and the possibility of low-scale inflation as well as a viable dark matter candidate.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures; some comments added, published versio

The Higgs as a Portal to Plasmon-like Unparticle Excitations

A renormalizable coupling between the Higgs and a scalar unparticle operator O_U of non-integer dimension d_U<2 triggers, after electroweak symmetry breaking, an infrared divergent vacuum expectation value for O_U. Such IR divergence should be tamed before any phenomenological implications of the Higgs-unparticle interplay can be drawn. In this paper we present a novel mechanism to cure that IR divergence through (scale-invariant) unparticle self-interactions, which has properties qualitatively different from the mechanism considered previously. Besides finding a mass gap in the unparticle continuum we also find an unparticle pole reminiscent of a plasmon resonance. Such unparticle features could be explored experimentally through their mixing with the Higgs boson.Comment: 12 LaTeX pages, 2 figure

Refining the predictions of supersymmetric CP-violating models: A top-down approach

We explore in detail the consequences of the CP-violating phases residing in the supersymmetric and soft SUSY breaking parameters in the approximation that family flavour mixings are ignored. We allow for non-universal boundary conditions and in such a consideration the model is described by twelve independent CP-violating phases and one angle which misaligns the vacuum expectation values (VEVs) of the Higgs scalars. We run two-loop renormalization group equations (RGEs), for all parameters involved, including phases, and we properly treat the minimization conditions using the one-loop effective potential with CP-violating phases included. We show that the two-loop running of phases may induce sizable effects for the electric dipole moments (EDMs) that are absent in the one-loop RGE analysis. Also important corrections to the EDMs are induced by the Higgs VEVs misalignment angle which are sizable in the large tanb region. Scanning the available parameter space we seek regions compatible with accelerator and cosmological data with emphasis on rapid neutralino annihilations through a Higgs resonance. It is shown that large CP-violating phases, as required in Baryogenesis scenarios, can be tuned to obtain agreement with WMAP3 cold dark matter constraints, EDMs and all available accelerator data, in extended regions of the parameter space which may be accessible to LHC.Comment: 41 pages, 22 eps figures. A reference added and a typo corrected; version to appear in JHE

The lightest Higgs mass in supersymmetric models with extra dimensions

In the four-dimensional supersymmetric standard model extended with gauge singlets the lightest Higgs boson mass, $M_H$, has an important contribution proportional to the squared of the superpotential coupling $\lambda$ of singlets to Higgs fields, $\lambda SH_1\cdot H_2$. The requirement of perturbativity up to the unification scale yields an upper bound on $M_H\sim 140$ GeV. In extensions to theories with (longitudinal) extra dimensions at the TeV where such coupling exists and massive Kaluza-Klein states fall into N=2 representations, if either of the Higgs or singlet fields live in the bulk of the extra dimensions, the $\beta$-function of $\lambda$ is suppressed due to the absence of anomalous dimension of hypermultiplets to leading order. This implies a slower running of $\lambda$ and an enhancement of its low energy value. The $M_H$ upper bound increases to values $M_H\lesssim 165$ GeV.Comment: Latex2e, 11 pages, 1 figur