We unveil the temperature-dependent electroweak phase transition in new extensions of the Standard Model in which the electroweak symmetry is spontaneously broken via strongly coupled, nearly-conformal dynamics achieved by the means of multiple matter representations. In particular, we focus on the low energy effective theory introduced to describe Ultra Minimal Walking Technicolor at the phase transition. Using the one-loop effective potential with ring improvement, we identify regions of parameter space which yield a strong first order transition. A striking feature of the model is the existence of a second phase transition associated to the electroweak-singlet sector. The interplay between these two transitions leads to an extremely rich phase diagram.
I consider the possibility that electroweak symmetry is broken by a strongly interacting chiral gauge theory. I argue that some of the discrepancies between precision electroweak measurements and the predictions of QCD-like technicolor models can be resolved if technicolor is a chiral gauge theory. I present a toy technicolor model which demonstrates this idea, and gives $ m_t \gg m_b$, with a small value for $Δρ_* \equiv αT $, and small corrections to $Z \rightarrow b \overline{b}$.
Precision electroweak measurements have been claimed to eliminate almost all models of technicolor. We show that the assumptions made to calculate the oblique parameters $S$,$T$,$U$ apply to QCD--like technicolor models which were ruled out long ago on much firmer grounds. These assumptions are invalid in modern ``walking'' technicolor models.
Several phenomenologically viable walking technicolor models have been proposed recently. I demonstrate that these models can have first order electroweak phase transitions, which are sufficiently strong for electroweak baryogenesis. Strong dynamics can also lead to several separate transitions at the electroweak scale, with the possibility of a temporary restoration and an extra breaking of the electroweak symmetry. First order phase transitions will produce gravitational waves, which may be detectable at future experiments.
We examine the effect of walking technicolor dynamics on the electroweak $S$ parameter and contrast it with the effect of QCD-like technicolor dynamics. Our main tools are the operator product expansion for the high-momentum behavior of the electroweak gauge boson vacuum polarizations and the analyticity of these polarizations which relate their low and high momentum behaviors. We show that whereas in large QCD-like technicolor models $S$ is large and positive, in walking technicolor models a negative contribution is emphasized, related to the large anomalous dimension of the technifermion con…
Using precision electroweak data, we put limits on ``natural'' top-color assisted technicolor models. Generically the new $U(1)$ gauge bosons in these models must have masses larger than roughly 2 TeV, although in certain (seemingly unrealistic) models the bound can be much lower.
Based on previous studies deriving the chiral Lagrangian for pseudo scalar mesons from the first principle of QCD in the path integral formalism, we derive the electroweak chiral Lagrangian and dynamically compute all its coefficients from the one family technicolor model. The numerical results of the $p^4$ order coefficients obtained in this paper are proportional to the technicolor number $N_{\rm TC}$ and the technifermion number $N_{\rm TF}$, which agrees with the arguments in previous works, and which confirms the reliability of this dynamical computation.
Based on previous studies computing coefficients of the electroweak chiral Lagrangian from C.T.Hill's schematic topcolor-assisted technicolor model, we generalize the calculation to K.Lane's prototype natural topcolor-assisted technicolor model. We find that typical features of the model are qualitatively similar as those of Hill's model, but Lane's model prefers smaller technicolor group and Z' mass must be smaller than 400GeV, further S parameter is around order of +1 mainly due to existence of three doublets of techniquarks. We obtain the values for all coefficients of the electroweak chira…
We show that the pseudo Nambu--Goldstone boson contribution to the Peskin--Takeuchi electroweak parameter $S$ can be negative in a class of technicolor theories. This negative contribution can be large enough to cancel the positive techni-hadron contribution, showing that electroweak precision tests alone cannot be used to rule out technicolor as the mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking.
We estimate the CP-violating $WWγ$ and $WWZ$ anomalous form factors, arising from CP-violating interactions in extended technicolor theories, and discuss their future experimental detectability. The electric dipole moment of the $W$ boson is found to be as large as ${\cal O}(10^{-21}) \; \mbox{$e$ cm}$. We connect the CP-odd $WWγ$ and $WWZ$ couplings to the corresponding CP-violating electroweak chiral lagrangian operators. The electric dipole moments of the neutron and the electron in technicolor theories are estimated to be as large as ${\cal O}(10^{-26}) \; \mbox{$e$ cm}$ and ${\cal O}(10^{…
Based on previous studies deriving the chiral Lagrangian for pseudo scalar mesons from the first principle of QCD, we derive the electroweak chiral Lagrangian and build up a formulation for computing its coefficients from one-doublet technicolor model and a schematic topcolor-assisted technicolor model. We find that the coefficients of the electroweak chiral Lagrangian for the topcolor-assisted technicolor model are divided into three parts: direct TC2 interaction part, TC1 and TC2 induced effective Z' particle contribution part, and ordinary quarks contribution part. The first two parts are c…
We consider models with a vectorlike confining gauge theory in the hidden sector, and demonstrate that the origin of the electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) is due to the dimensional transmutation in the hidden sector gauge theory, and the lightest mesons in the hidden sector could be a good cold dark matter (CDM) candidate. There would be more than one neutral Higgs-like scalar bosons, and they could decay mainly into the CDM pair, if that decay channel is kinemtically allowed.
We consider a theory of gauge fields and fermions which we argue gives rise to dynamics similar to that of the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model when a gauge coupling constant is appropriately fine-tuned. We discuss the application of this model to dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking by a top-quark condensate. In this model, custodial symmetry is violated solely by perturbatively weak interactions, and the top--bottom mass splitting is due to the enhanced sensitivity to custodial symmetry violation near the critical point. We also consider models in which electroweak symmetry is broken by ne…
We discuss the selection of fermion representations in technicolor models with a view toward minimizing technicolor contributions to the precision electroweak $S$ parameter. We present and analyze models that involve one technifermion SU(2)$_L$ doublet with standard-model singlet technifermion sectors that lead to walking behavior, which further reduces $S$. We also consider models that have technifermions in higher-dimensional representations and study embeddings in extended technicolor theories.
We analyze the WW scattering in scenarios of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking of walking technicolor type. We show that in these theories there are regions of the parameters space allowed by the electroweak precision data, in which unitarity violation is delayed at tree level up to around 3-4 TeV without the inclusion of any sub-TeV resonances.
We explore the scenario in which the breaking of the electroweak symmetry is due to the simultaneous presence and interplay of a dynamical sector and an unnatural elementary Higgs. We introduce a low energy effective Lagrangian and constrain the various couplings via direct search limits and electroweak and flavor precision tests. We find that the model we study is a viable model of dynamical breaking of the electroweak symmetry.
We construct a Technicolor model which provides masses for the electroweak gauge bosons and for all the Standard Model matter fields. Starting from an ultraviolet complete supersymmetric technicolor, we propose a scenario where all elementary scalars, gauginos, and higgsinos are decoupled at an energy scale substantially higher than the electroweak scale, therefore avoiding the little hierarchy problem of the minimal supersymmetric standard model. The resulting low energy theory has an SU(3) global symmetry whose breaking to SO(3) leads to electroweak symmetry breaking. We study in detail the …
Technicolor, with extended technicolor, is the theory of dynamical electroweak and flavor symmetry breaking at energies far below the Planck scale. To motivate it, I describe the most important difficulties of the standard electroweak model of symmetry breaking by elementary scalar bosons. I then tell how technicolor deals with these difficulties in a way that is both technically and physically natural. Finally, I discuss the problems of technicolor, both past and present. (This is the written version of an invited talk given at the International Conference on the History of Original Ideas and…
Models of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking usually include new spin-1 resonances, whose couplings and masses have to satisfy electroweak precision tests. We propose to use dilepton searches to probe the underlying structure responsible for satisfying these. Using the invariant mass spectrum and charge asymmetry, we can determine the number, parity, and isospin of these resonances. We pick three models of strong/warped symmetry breaking, and show that each model produces specific features that reflect this underlying structure of electroweak symmetry breaking and cancellations.
We propose a scenario of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking which is applicable to the model with no tree-level potential for the elementary Higgs doublet field. An example of such a model is the gauge-Higgs unification model. The strong coupling "technicolor" dynamics can provide the scale of the electroweak symmetry breaking in the potential of the Higgs doublet field. The negative mass squared and quartic coupling can be generated through the Yukawa couplings among heavy and light "technifermions" and the Higgs doublet field. Since the massless "technifermion" is singlet under the elec…
Models of spontaneous breaking of electroweak symmetry by a strong interaction do not have fine tuning/hierarchy problem. They are conceptually elegant and use the only mechanism of spontaneous breaking of a gauge symmetry that is known to occur in nature. The simplest model, minimal technicolor with extended technicolor interactions, is appealing because one can calculate by scaling up from QCD. But it is ruled out on many counts: inappropriately low quark and lepton masses (or excessive FCNC), bad electroweak data fits, light scalar and vector states, etc. However, nature may not choose the …
It is well known that technicolor models in which the electroweak symmetry is broken by QCD-like strong dynamics at the TeV scale generally predict unacceptably large corrections to low-energy observables. We investigate the models of electroweak symmetry breaking by strong dynamics in which the gauge symmetry is extended to include an arbitrary number of additional SU(2) and U(1) factors. This class of models includes the deconstructed version of the recently proposed five-dimensional "Higgsless" scenario. We conclude that the additional structure present in these theories does not suppress t…
Topcolor--assisted technicolor provides a dynamical explanation for electroweak and flavor symmetry breaking and for the large mass of the top quark without unnatural fine tuning. A major challenge is to generate the observed mixing between heavy and light generations while breaking the strong topcolor interactions near~$1\,\tev$. I argue that these phenomena, as well as electroweak symmetry breaking, are intimately connected and I present a scenario for them based on nontrivial patterns of technifermion condensation. I also exhibit a class of models realizing this scenario. This picture leads…
Radiative corrections to electroweak parameters in technicolor theories may be evaluated by one of two techniques: either one estimates spectral function integrals using scaled QCD data, or one uses naive dimensional analysis with a chiral Lagrangian. The former yields corrections to electroweak parameters proportional to the number of flavors and the number of colors, while the latter is proportional to the number of flavors squared and is independent of the number of colors. We attempt to resolve this apparent contradiction by showing that the spectrum of technicolor one obtains by scaling Q…
In this note I provide a brief description of models of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking, including walking technicolor, top-color assisted technicolor, the top-quark seesaw model, and little higgs theories.
We construct a one-family technicolor model which is consistent with the precision experiments on the electroweak interaction. The Majorana mass of the right-handed techni-neutrino is introduced and the techni-$U(1)_{B-L}$ symmetry is gauged to obtain the correct breaking of the electroweak symmetry. The tree-level kinetic mixing between the techni-$U(1)_{B-L}$ and $U(1)_Y$ gauge bosons plays an important role for having the consistent value of the $S$ parameter.
Topcolor-assisted technicolor provides a dynamical explanation for electroweak and flavor symmetry breaking and for the large mass of the top quark without unnatural fine tuning. I briefly review the basics of topcolor-assisted technicolor, including major constraints and a general approach to satisfying them. The main challenge to topcolor-assisted technicolor is to generate the observed mixing between heavy and light generations while breaking the strong topcolor interactions near 1 TeV. I argue that these phenomena, as well as electroweak symmetry breaking, are intimately connected and I pr…
We study the minimal model of conformal technicolor, an SU(2) gauge theory near a strongly coupled conformal fixed point, with conformal symmetry softly broken by technifermion mass terms. Conformal symmetry breaking triggers chiral symmetry breaking in the pattern SU(4) -> Sp(4), which gives rise to a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson that can act as a composite Higgs boson. The top quark is elementary, and the top and electroweak gauge loop contributions to the Higgs mass are cut off entirely by Higgs compositeness. In particular, the model requires no top partners and no "little Higgs" mechanism…
This talk describes how modern theories of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking have evolved from the original minimal QCD-like technicolor model in response to three key challenges: R_b, flavor-changing neutral currents, and weak isospin violation.
We present a model of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking in which the splitting between the top and bottom quark masses arises naturally. The W and Z masses are produced by a minimal technicolor sector, the top quark mass is given by the exchange of a weak-doublet technicolored scalar, and the other quark and lepton masses are induced by the exchange of a weak-doublet technicolor-singlet scalar. We show that, in the presence of the latter scalar, the vacuum alignment is correct even in the case of SU(2) technicolor. The fit of this model to the electroweak data gives an acceptable agreeme…
In these lectures we present the motivation for dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking and its most popular realization, technicolor. We introduce the basic ideas of technicolor and its companion theory of flavor, extended technicolor. We review the classical theory of technicolor, based on naive scaling from quantum chromodynamics, and discuss the classical theory's fatal flaws. Finally, we describe the principal attempt to correct these flaws, the theory of walking technicolor.
We analyze the constraints on the the vacuum polarization of the standard model gauge bosons from a minimal set of flavor observables valid for a general class of models of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking. We will show that the constraints have a strong impact on the self-coupling and masses of the lightest spin-one resonances. Our analysis is applicable to any four and higher dimensional extension of the standard model reducing to models of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking.
These two lectures on technicolor and extended technicolor (ETC) were presented at l'Ecole de GIF at LAPP, Annecy-le-Vieux, France, in September 2001. In Lecture I, the motivation and structure of this theory of dynamical breaking of electroweak and flavor symmetries is summarized. The main phenomenological obstacles to this picture--flavor-changing neutral currents, precision electroweak measurements, and the large top-quark mass--are reviewed. Then, their proposed resolutions--walking technicolor and topcolor-assisted technicolor are discussed. In Lecture II, a scenario for CP violation is p…
In supersymmetric theories with a strong conformal sector, soft supersymmetry breaking at the TeV scale naturally gives rise to confinement and chiral symmetry breaking at the same scale. We investigate models where such a sector dynamically breaks electroweak symmetry. We consider two scenarios, one where the strong dynamics induces vacuum expectation values for elementary Higgs fields, and another where the strong dynamics is solely responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking. In both cases there is no fine tuning required to explain the absence of a Higgs boson below the LEP bound, solvin…
We study a model in which the electroweak symmetry is dynamically broken by technicolor interactions and the symmetry-breaking is communicated to the quarks and leptons by a weak doublet of scalar fields. The scalars may be regarded as elementary or as light bound states arising from strong extended technicolor interactions. This model is unusual in that it can provide a heavy top quark without generating large flavor-changing neutral currents. Our work focuses on the model's phenomenology, particularly the oblique electroweak radiative corrections. We demonstrate that while oblique correction…
Dynamical breaking of the electroweak theory, i.e. technicolor, is an intriguing extension of the Standard Model. Recently new models have been proposed featuring walking dynamics for a very low number of techniflavors. These technicolor extensions are not ruled out by current precision measurements. Here I first motivate the idea of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking and then summarize some of the properties of the recent models and their possible cosmological implications.
A fifth force, of technicolor type, responsible for breaking the electroweak theory is an intriguing extension of the Standard Model. Recently new theories have been shown to feature walking dynamics for a very low number of techniflavors and are not ruled out by electroweak precision measurements. We identify the light degrees of freedom and construct the associated low energy effective theories. These can be used to study signatures and relevant processes in current and future experiments. In our theory the technibaryons are pseudo Goldstone bosons and their masses arise via extended technic…
We consider a minimal technicolor model in which the ordinary and technicolor sectors are coupled by a {\it massless} scalar doublet. When technicolor interactions become strong, the resulting technicolor condensate not only breaks the electroweak symmetry, but also causes the scalar to develop a vacuum expectation value. With the appropriate choice of the scalar's Yukawa couplings, fermion masses are generated, giving us the conventional pattern of flavor symmetry breaking. Although no explicit scalar mass term appears in the full lagrangian of the model, the pseudoscalar states that remain i…
We propose a scenario in which the electroweak symmetry is spontaneously broken by an $SU(4)$ technicolor gauge interaction which also manages to break itself completely. The technicolor gauge bosons and technifermions are not confined by the technicolor force, but get large masses. Starting with a single technidoublet, one emerges with a complete standard model family of technifermions after the symmetry breaking is complete. This suggests a broad new avenue for model building. A few variations on the theme are mentioned.
We examine the temperature-dependent electroweak phase transition in extensions of the Standard Model in which the electroweak symmetry is spontaneously broken via strongly coupled, nearly-conformal dynamics. In particular, we focus on the low energy effective theory used to describe Minimal Walking Technicolor at the phase transition. Using the one-loop effective potential with ring improvement, we identify significant regions of parameter space which yield a sufficiently strong first order transition for electroweak baryogenesis. The composite particle spectrum corresponding to these regions…
New strong gauge interactions remain a viable source for the electroweak symmetry breaking. However, addressing the generation of fermion masses remains a challenge. A basic observable which provides stringent constraints on the flavor extensions of Technicolor-type models is the decay rate of the Z boson into a bbbar-pair. In this paper we provide a general framework to evaluate the resulting constraints on the technicolor theory level taking into account the contributions from the vector and axial vector mesons and discuss the consequences for phenomenology.
After briefly remarking on alternatives for breaking the electroweak symmetry, I discuss the implication that recent precision experiments at LEP have for the symmetry breaking sector. The difficulties associated with generating fermion masses when the electroweak symmetry is broken dynamically are exposed and an alternative to the walking technicolor - extended technicolor scenario is suggested, based on models of substructure. Failures and lessons from trying to incorporate families and mixing in these latter schemes are also discussed.
This paper extends an earlier one describing the Higgs boson $H$ as a light composite scalar in a strong extended technicolor model of electroweak symmetry breaking. The Higgs mass $M_H$ is made much smaller than $Λ_{ETC}$ by tuning the ETC coupling very close to the critical value for electroweak symmetry breaking. The technicolor interaction, neglected in the earlier paper, is considered here. Its weakness relative to extended technicolor is essential to understanding the lightness of $H$ compared to the low-lying spin-one technihadrons. Technicolor cannot be completely ignored, but implemen…
We investigate the longitudinal $WW$ scattering in models of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking featuring a spin one axial and vector state and a composite Higgs. We also investigate the effects of a composite spin two state which has the same properties of a massive graviton. Any model of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking will feature, depending on the dynamics, some or all these basic resonances as part of the low energy spectrum. We suggest how to take limits in the effective Lagrangian parameter space to reproduce the dynamics of different types of underlying gauge theories, fro…
We study technicolor models in which all of the technifermions are color-singlets, focusing on the case in these fermions transform according to the fundamental representation of the technicolor gauge group. Our analysis includes a derivation of restrictions on the weak hypercharge assignments for the technifermions and additional color-singlet, technisinglet fermions arising from the necessity of avoiding stable bound states with exotic electric charges. Precision electroweak constraints on these models are also discussed. We determine some general properties of extended technicolor theories …
Technicolor achieves electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) in an elegant and natural way, while it suffers from severe model building difficulties. I propose to abandon its secondary goal to eliminate scalar bosons in exchange of solving numerous problems using supersymmetry. It helps to understand walking dynamics much better with certain exact results. In the particular model presented here, there is no light elementary Higgs boson and the EWSB is fully dynamical, hence explaining the hierarchy; There is no alignment problem and no light pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons exist; The fermion masses…
A realistic technicolor model is presented with the dynamics below $150$ TeV treated explicitly. Electroweak symmetry is broken by the condensates of a `minimal' doublet of technifermions. The new feature of the model is that the the third generation quarks are unified with the technifermions into multiplets of a walking gauge force down to a scale of $10$ TeV. The remaining quarks and leptons are not involved in this unification however. The walking dynamics enhances the higher dimension interactions which give the ordinary fermions their masses and mixing, while leaving flavor-changing neutr…
Condensates of colored fermions driving electroweak symmetry breaking could give rise to a light pseudoscalar that would show up in the Higgs search at the LHC. The branching ratios of its decay will distinguish it from the Higgs and illuminate its origin. In particular the colored fermions may be the techniquarks of a one family technicolor theory or the quarks of a strongly interacting fourth family. The former has more difficulties in this context.
This review is based on lectures on technicolor and extended technicolor presented at the Frascati Spring School in May 2000. I summarize the motivation and structure of this theory of dynamical breaking of electroweak and flavor symmetries. Particular attention is paid to the main phenomenological obstacles to this picture-flavor-changing neutral currents, precision electroweak measurements, and the large top-quark mass-and their proposed resolutions-walking technicolor and topcolor-assisted technicolor. I then discuss the signatures for technicolor and the existing and upcoming searches for …
We investigate the production and possible detection of gravitational waves stemming from the electroweak phase transition in the early universe in models of minimal walking technicolor. In particular we discuss the two possible scenarios in which one has only one electroweak phase transition and the case in which the technicolor dynamics allows for multiple phase transitions.
Using precision electroweak data, we put limits on non-commuting extended technicolor models. We conclude that these models are viable only if the ETC interactions are strong. Interestingly, these models predict a pattern of deviations from the standard model which can fit the data significantly better than the standard model does, even after taking into account the extra parameters involved.
We compute masses, trilinear self-couplings and decay widths into weak bosons of the scalar composite bosons in the case of the Minimal and Ultraminimal technicolor models. The masses, computed via the Bethe-Salpeter equation, turn out to be light and the trilinear couplings smaller than the one that would be expected when compared to a fundamental Standard Model scalar boson with the same mass. The decay widths into electroweak bosons of the Ultraminimal model scalars bosons are much smaller than the one of the Minimal model.
Technicolor and other theories of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking invoke chiral symmetry breaking triggered by strong gauge-dynamics, analogous to that found in QCD, to explain the observed W, Z, and fermion masses. In this talk we describe why a realistic theory of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking must, relative to QCD, produce an enhanced fermion condensate. We quantify the degree to which the technicolor condensate must be enhanced in order to yield the observed quark masses, and still be consistent with phenomenological constraints on flavor-changing neutral-currents. Lattic…
We present a new class of 5D models, Holographic Technicolor, which fulfills the basic requirements for a candidate of comprehensible 4D strong dynamics at the electroweak scale. It is the first Technicolor-like model able to provide a vanishing or even negative tree-level S parameter, avoiding any no-go theorem on its sign. The model is described in the large-N regime. S is therefore computable: possible corrections coming from boundary terms follow the 1/N suppression, and generation of fermion masses and the S parameter issue do split up. We investigate the model's 4D dual, probably walking…
We analyze the constraints on the the vacuum polarization of the standard model gauge bosons from a minimal set of flavor observables valid for a general class of models of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking. We will show that the constraints have a strong impact on the self-coupling and masses of the lightest spin-one resonances.
We point out that the flavor problem in theories with dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking can be effectively decoupled if the physics above the TeV scale is strongly conformal, and the electroweak order parameter has a scaling dimension d = 1 + epsilon with epsilon \simeq 1/few. There are many restrictions on small values of epsilon: for epsilon << 1, electroweak symmetry breaking requires a fine-tuning similar to that of the standard model; large-N conformal field theories (including those obtained from the AdS/CFT correspondence) require fine-tuning for d < 2; `walking technicolor' theor…
We explore corrections to electroweak parameters in the context of Extended Technicolor (ETC) models in which the ETC gauge-boson which generates the top-quark mass carries weak $SU(2)$ charge. For $m_t \sim 150$ GeV there exist potentially large corrections to the $Z$ decay width to $b$-quarks. Interestingly, in contrast to the situation in ETC models where the gauge-boson which generates the top-quark mass is a weak $SU(2)$ singlet, the corrections may {\it increase} the $Z \to b \bar{b}$ branching ratio.
We map the phase diagram of gauge theories of fundamental interactions in the flavor-temperature plane using chiral perturbation theory to estimate the relation between the pion decaying constant and the critical temperature above which chiral symmetry is restored. We then investigate the impact of our results on models of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking and therefore on the electroweak early universe phase transition.
If fermion condensation is a main source of electroweak symmetry breaking, an ultra-heavy Higgs doublet of mass ~10^8 GeV can yield naturally small Dirac neutrino masses. We show that such a scenario can lead to a new leptogenesis mechanism based on the decays of the ultra-heavy Higgs. Given its very large mass, the requisite Higgs doublet can be considered an elementary particle and would point to a cutoff scale ~10^10 GeV. We outline how our scenario can also naturally lead to composite asymmetric dark matter. Some potential signals of this scenario are discussed.
There are quasi-conformal theories, like the Minimal and Ultraminimal Technicolor models, which may break dynamically the gauge symmetry of the Standard Model and at the same time are compatible with electroweak precision data. The main characteristic of this type of models is their fermionic content in one or more higher dimensional representations, therefore it is not immediate to know which model leads to the most attractive channel or the minimum vacuum energy state. We discuss the effective potential for composite operators for these models, verifying that their vacuum energy values are d…
In supersymmetric theories with a strong conformal sector, soft supersymmetry breaking naturally gives rise to confinement and chiral symmetry breaking in the strong sector at the TeV scale. We construct and analyze models where such a sector dynamically breaks electroweak symmetry, and take the first steps in studying their phenomenology. We consider two scenarios, one where the strong dynamics induces vacuum expectation values for elementary Higgs fields, and another where the strong dynamics is solely responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking. In both cases there is no fine tuning requi…
