A holographic composite Higgs model

If the Higgs boson has a composite nature, it might be the 4-dimensional hologram of a gauge field living in a warped extra dimension. In this talk I discuss a minimal, calculable model that passes all electroweak precision tests, included that from Z->bb, and gives a natural account of the electroweak symmetry breaking.Comment: 4 pages, talk given at IFAE 2006, Pavia, Italy, April 19-21 200

New Physics at the LHC: Strong vs Weak symmetry breaking

What kind of New Physics, if any, we expect to discover at the LHC? I will try to address this formidable question by re-formulating it as follows: is the breaking of the electroweak symmetry strong or weak ?Comment: Talk given at IFAE 2009, Bari, Italy, 15-17 April 200

The Supersymmetric Flavor Problem for Heavy First-Two Generation Scalars at Next-to-Leading Order

We analyze in detail the constraints on SUSY-model parameters obtained from K-Kbar mixing in the hypothesis of a splitted SUSY spectrum. FCNC contributions from gluino-squark-quark interactions are studied in the so-called mass insertion approximation. We present boundaries on mass insertions and on SUSY mass scales. We improve previous results by including the NLO-QCD corrections to Delta S=2 effective Hamiltonian and the complete set of B-parameters for the evaluation of hadronic matrix elements. A full set of magic-numbers, that can be used for further analyses of these models, is also given. We find that the inclusion of NLO-QCD corrections and the B-parameters change the results obtained at LO and in the Vacuum Insertion Approximation by an amount of about 25-35%.Comment: 22 Latex pages, 5 figures; Figs. 1,2 redrawn for K=0.22, section 4.1 revisited, references corrected. Submitted to European Journal of Physics

Dispersion Relations for Electroweak Observables in Composite Higgs Models

We derive dispersion relations for the electroweak oblique observables measured at LEP in the context of $SO(5)/SO(4)$ composite Higgs models. It is shown how these relations can be used and must be modified when modeling the spectral functions through a low-energy effective description of the strong dynamics. The dispersion relation for the parameter $\epsilon_3$ is then used to estimate the contribution from spin-1 resonances at the 1-loop level. Finally, it is shown that the sign of the contribution to the $\hat S$ parameter from the lowest-lying spin-1 states is not necessarily positive definite, but depends on the energy scale at which the asymptotic behavior of current correlators is attained.Comment: 34 pages, 4 figures. v2: a few minor changes, typos corrected, list of references revise

One-loop effects from spin-1 resonances in Composite Higgs models

We compute the 1-loop correction to the electroweak observables from spin-1 resonances in SO(5)/SO(4) composite Higgs models. The strong dynamics is modeled with an effective description comprising the Nambu-Goldstone bosons and the lowest-lying spin-1 resonances. A classification is performed of the relevant operators including custodially-breaking effects from the gauging of hypercharge. The 1-loop contribution of the resonances is extracted in a diagrammatic approach by matching to the low-energy theory of Nambu-Goldstone bosons. We find that the correction is numerically important in a significant fraction of the parameter space and tends to weaken the bounds providing a negative shift to the S parameter.Comment: 45 pages, 13 figures. v2: minor corrections, conclusions unchanged. v3: two diagrams in Fig.13 correctly redraw

Top Compositeness and Precision Unification

The evolution of Standard Model gauge couplings is studied in a non-supersymmetric scenario in which the hierarchy problem is resolved by Higgs compositeness above the weak scale. It is argued that massiveness of the top quark combined with precision tests of the bottom quark imply that the right-handed top must also be composite. If, further, the Standard Model gauge symmetry is embedded into a simple subgroup of the unbroken composite-sector flavor symmetry, then precision coupling unification is shown to occur at~10^{15} GeV, to a degree comparable to supersymmetric unification.Comment: v2: few extra comments added; slightly shorter version published in PR

Higgs pair production in vector-boson fusion at the LHC and beyond

The production of pairs of Higgs bosons at hadron colliders provides unique information on the Higgs sector and on the mechanism underlying electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB). Most studies have concentrated on the gluon fusion production mode which has the largest cross section. However, despite its small production rate, the vector-boson fusion channel can also be relevant since even small modifications of the Higgs couplings to vector bosons induce a striking increase of the cross section as a function of the invariant mass of the Higgs boson pair. In this work, we exploit this unique signature to propose a strategy to extract the $hhVV$ quartic coupling and provide model-independent constraints on theories where EWSB is driven by new strong interactions. We take advantage of the higher signal yield of the $b\bar b b\bar b$ final state and make extensive use of jet substructure techniques to reconstruct signal events with a boosted topology, characteristic of large partonic energies, where each Higgs boson decays to a single collimated jet . Our results demonstrate that the $hhVV$ coupling can be measured with 45% (20%) precision at the LHC for $\mathcal{L}=$ 300 (3000) fb$^{-1}$, while a 1% precision can be achieved at a 100 TeV collider.Comment: Updated to match published version in EPJC and fixed typo in Tab. 10 (column labels a & b were swapped

Contextualizing the Higgs at the LHC

Recent excesses across different search modes of the collaborations at the LHC seem to indicate the presence of a Higgs-like scalar particle at 125 GeV. Using the current data sets, we review and update analyses addressing the extent to which this state is compatible with the Standard Model, and provide two contextual answers for how it might instead fit into alternative scenarios with enlarged electroweak symmetry breaking sectors.Comment: Contribution to the proceedings of PLHC 2012, Vancouver, BC, June 4-9, 201

Z', Z_KK, Z* and all that: current bounds and theoretical prejudices on heavy neutral vector bosons

I review the current experimental bounds and theoretical predictions for different kinds of heavy neutral vector bosons.Comment: Talk given at: V Workshop Italiano sulla fisica p-p ad LHC, Perugia, Italy, 30 Jan. - 2 Feb. 200