Witold Skiba

Distinguishing the Higgs boson from the dilaton at the Large Hadron Collider

It is likely that the LHC will observe a colorand charge-neutral scalar whose decays are consistent with those of the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson. The Higgs interpretation of such a discovery is not the only possibility. For example, electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) could be triggered by a spontaneously broken, nearly conformal sector. The spectrum of states at the electroweak scale would then contain a narrow scalar resonance, the pseudo-Goldstone boson of conformal symmetry breaking, with Higgs-like properties. If the conformal sector is strongly coupled, this pseudo-dilaton may be the only new state accessible at high energy colliders. We discuss the prospects for distinguishing this mode from a minimal Higgs boson at the LHC and ILC. The main discriminants between the two scenarios are (1) cubic self-interactions and (2) a potential enhancement of couplings to massless SM gauge bosons. A particularly interesting situation arises when the scale f of conformal symmetry breaking is approximately the electroweak scale v ≃ 246 GeV. Although in this case the LHC may not be able to tell apart a pseudo-dilaton from the Higgs boson, the self-interactions differ in a way that depends only on the scaling dimension of certain operators in the conformal sector. This opens the possibility of using dilaton pair production at future colliders as a probe of EWSB induced by nearly conformal new physics.

Effective theory analysis of precision electroweak data

We obtain the bounds on arbitrary linear combinations of operators of dimension 6 in the Standard Model. We consider a set of 21 flavor and CP conserving operators. Each of our 21 operators is tightly constrained by the standard set of electroweak measurements. We perform a fit to all relevant precision electroweak data and include neutrino scattering experiments, atomic parity violation, W mass, LEP1, SLD, and LEP2 data. Our results provide an efficient way of obtaining bounds on weakly coupled extensions of the standard model.

Simple model of two little Higgs bosons

We construct a little Higgs model using a simple global symmetry group SU(9) spontaneously broken to SU(8). The electroweak interactions are extended to SU(3)xU(1) and embedded in SU(9). At the electroweak scale, our model is a two Higgs-doublet model. At the TeV scale, there are additional states, which are responsible for the cancellation of one loop quadratic divergences. We compute the effects of heavy states on the precision electroweak observables and find that the lower bounds on the masses of heavy gauge bosons and fermions are between 1 and 2 TeV.

Disguising the oblique parameters

We point out a set of operator identities that relate the operators corresponding to the oblique corrections to operators that modify fermion couplings to the gauge bosons as well as operators that modify triple gauge boson couplings. Such identities are simple consequences of the equations of motion. Therefore the contributions from new physics to the oblique parameters can be disguised as modifications of triple gauge boson couplings provided the fermion couplings to the gauge bosons are suitably modified by higher-dimensional operators. Since the experimental constraints on triple gauge boson couplings are much weaker than the constraints on the oblique parameters this observation allows extra room for model building. We derive operator relations in effective theories of the standard model with the electroweak symmetry either linearly or nonlinearly realized and discuss applications of our results.

Using jet mass to discover vector quarks at the CERN LHC

We illustrate the utility of jet-mass distributions as probes of new physics at the LHC, focusing on a heavy vector-quark doublet that mixes with the top as a concrete example. For 1 TeV vector-quark masses, we find that signals with greater than 5{sigma} significance can be achieved after 100 fb{sup -1}. More generally, jet-mass distributions have the potential to provide signals for heavy states that produce highly boosted weak gauge bosons and/or top quarks.

Standard model couplings and collider signatures of a light scalar

The electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) sector of the standard model can be far richer and more interesting than the usual single scalar doublet model. We explore scenarios where the EWSB sector is nearly scale invariant and consequently gives rise to a light CP even scalar particle. The one-doublet SM is in that category, as are many other models with either weakly or strongly coupled sectors that trigger EWSB. We study the couplings of the light scalar to the SM particles that can arise from the explicit breaking of scale invariance focusing on the possible differences with the minimal SM. The couplings of the light scalar to light fermions, as well as to the massless gauge bosons, can be significantly enhanced. We find possible new discovery channels due to the decays of the conformal scalar into e{sup +}e{sup -} and {mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup -} pairs as well as new production channels via light quark annihilation.

Little Higgs models and electroweak measurements

Using effective field theory approach, we study the constraints from electroweak data on the SU(5)/SO(5), SU(6)/SP(6), SU(3)xU(1) little Higgs models and their variations. We construct an effective theory valid above the electroweak symmetry breaking scale in these models that includes dimension-six operators induced by integrating out heavy fields. We calculate the constraints on the models using the results of [Z. Han and W. Skiba, Phys. Rev. D 71, 075009 (2005)], where bounds on arbitrary linear combinations of flavor and CP conserving dimension-six operators are given. We present the constraints in terms of the bounds on the masses of heavy fermions and heavy gauge bosons. The constraints are often stringent, but in some regions of the parameter space the constraints are mild enough and do not imply significant fine-tuning.

Superembedding Methods for 4d N=1 SCFTs

We extend the

Low-scale gaugino mediation, lots of leptons at the LHC

SO(4,2)

Ultraviolet extension of the simplest little Higgs model

covariant lightcone embedding methods of four-dimensional CFTs to