The Neutrino Option

Abstract

The minimal seesaw scenario can radiatively generate the Higgs potential to induce electroweak symmetry breaking while supplying an origin of the Higgs vacuum expectation value from an underlying Majorana scale. If the Higgs potential and (derived) electroweak scale have this origin, the heavy $\rm SU(3) \times SU(2) \times U(1)_Y$ singlet states are expected to reside at $m_N \sim 10-500 \, {\rm PeV}$ for couplings $|\omega| \sim 10^{-4.5}-10^{-6}$ between the Majorana sector and the Standard Model. In this framework, the challenge of the electroweak scale hierarchy problem is replaced with a need to generate or accommodate PeV Majorana mass scales in ultraviolet models; the usual hierarchy problem is absent as the electroweak scale is not a fundamental scale.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, one radiative potential. Updated version consistent with the one accepted for publication in PRL (title changed in the journal