Skyrmions are extended field configurations, initially proposed to describe baryons as topological solitons in an effective field theory of mesons. We investigate and confirm the existence of skyrmions within the electroweak sector of the Standard Model and study their properties. We find that the interplay of the electroweak sector with a dynamical Higgs field and the Skyrme term leads to a non-trivial vacuum structure with the skyrmion and perturbative vacuum sectors separated by a finite energy barrier. We identify dimension-8 operators that stabilise the electroweak skyrmion as a spatially localised soliton field configuration with finite size. Such operators are induced generically by a wide class of UV models. To calculate the skyrmion energy and radius we use a neural network method. Electroweak skyrmions are non-topological solitons but are exponentially long lived, and we find that the electroweak skyrmion is a viable dark matter candidate. While the skyrmion production cross section at collider experiments is suppressed, measuring the size of the Skyrme term in multi-Higgs-production processes at high-energy colliders is a promising avenue to probe the existence of electroweak skyrmions.
We study the existence of skyrmions in the presence of all the electroweak degrees of freedom, including a dynamical Higgs boson, with the electroweak symmetry being non-linearly realized in the scalar sector. For this, we use the formulation of the Higgs Effective Field Theory (HEFT). In contrast with the linear realization, a well-defined winding number exists in HEFT for all scalar field configurations. We classify the effective operators that can potentially stabilize the skyrmions and numerically find the region in parameter spaces that support them. We do so by minimizing the static ener…
We discuss the properties of the topological soliton, or the Electroweak-Skyrmion, in the system of the Standard Model Higgs Lagrangian with addition of general O(p^4) terms. We show that the upper bound on the mass of the Electroweak-Skyrmion is about 10 TeV, which is obtained from currently available experimental constraints on coefficients of O(p^4) terms. The impact on the properties of the Electroweak-Skyrmion due to further modification of the Lagrangian is also discussed, and comments on possible mechanisms for the generation of the Electroweak-Skyrmion in the early Universe as a dark m…
We propose a scenario that the Electroweak-Skyrmion, a solitonic object made of the Higgs field and the electroweak gauge fields, is identified as an asymmetric dark matter. In this scenario, the relic abundance of the dark matter is related to the baryon asymmetry of the Universe through a sphaleron-like process. We show that the observed ratio of dark matter abundance to the baryon asymmetry can be explained by this scenario with an appropriate choice of model parameters that is allowed by currently available experimental constraints.
We discuss the stability and masses of topological solitons in QCD and strongly-interacting models of electroweak symmetry breaking with arbitrary combinations of two inequivalent Lagrangian terms of fourth order in the field spatial derivatives. We find stable solitons for only a restricted range of the ratio of these combinations, in agreement with previous results, and we calculate the corresponding soliton masses. In QCD, the experimental constraints on the fourth-order terms force the soliton to resemble the original Skyrmion solution. However, this is not necessarily the case in strongly…
We show the existence of a nontrivial topological configuration of the Higgs field in the Standard Model with the Skyrme term. It is shown that the current upper bound of the mass of the topological object is about 34 TeV. We discuss the impact of the existence of the topological object on cosmology.
Skyrmions are present in many models of electroweak symmetry breaking where the Higgs is a pseudo-Goldstone boson of some strongly interacting sector. They are stable, composite objects whose mass lies in the range 10-100 TeV and can be naturally abundant in the universe due to their small annihilation cross-section. They represent therefore good dark matter candidates. We show however in this work that the lightest skyrmion states are electrically charged in most of the popular little Higgs models, and hence should have been directly or indirectly observed in nature already. The charge of the…
Electroweak form factors of large nuclei as BPS skyrmions
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela（圣地亚哥德孔波斯特拉大学）；Instituto Galego de Física de Altas Enerxias (IGFAE)（加利西亚高能物理研究所）；University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU（巴斯克地区大学）；Universidade de Vigo（维戈大学）
In sufficiently complex models with many parameters that are unknown or undetermined from first principles, a small coupling or mass can naturally arise even if it is not protected by a symmetry or a result of some dynamics. For the naturalness criterion, we advocate specifying all the model parameters with one significant figure. This automatically avoids outcomes of a given observable that would require special highly-tuned choices for parameters. The obtained range of outcomes is an attribute of a given model resulting from its specific characteristics and complexity. Using these criteria i…
Having discovered a candidate for the final piece of the Standard Model, the Higgs boson, the question remains why its vacuum expectation value and its mass are so much smaller than the Planck scale (or any other high scale of new physics). One elegant solution was provided by Coleman and Weinberg, where all mass scales are generated from dimensionless coupling constants via dimensional transmutation. However, the original Coleman-Weinberg scenario predicts a Higgs mass which is too light; it is parametrically suppressed compared to the mass of the vectors bosons, and hence is much lighter tha…
Many extensions of the standard model predict heavy metastable particles which may be modeled as solitons (skyrmions of the Higgs field), relating their particle number to a winding number. Previous work has shown that the electroweak interactions admit processes in which these solitons decay, violating standard model baryon number. We motivate the hypothesis that baryon-number-violating decay is a generic outcome of collisions between these heavy particles. We do so by exploring a 2+1 dimensional theory which also possesses metastable skyrmions. We use relaxation techniques to determine the s…
We explore the Higgs-Gauge configuration space in the standard electroweak theory. We outline a general prescription that uses the non-trivial topology associated with the gauge group of the theory, to find known solutions of the Euclidean classical equations of motion and motivate the existence of novel ones. In Minkowski spacetime we present evidence for the existence of approximate breathers -- long-lived, spatially localized, temporally periodic configurations. We consider heavy fermion quantum fluctuations about static Higgs-Gauge configurations, and argue for the existence of stable ferm…
We derive the electroweak (EW) collinear splitting functions for the Standard Model, including the massive fermions, gauge bosons and the Higgs boson. We first present the splitting functions in the limit of unbroken SU(2)xU(1) and discuss their general features in the collinear and soft-collinear regimes. We then systematically incorporate EW symmetry breaking (EWSB), which leads to the emergence of additional "ultra-collinear" splitting phenomena and naive violations of the Goldstone-boson Equivalence Theorem. We suggest a particularly convenient choice of non-covariant gauge (dubbed "Goldst…
We show that the cusp-like structure in the nuclear symmetry energy, a consequence of topology change, visible in the skyrmion lattice description of dense matter is extremely robust. It is present in the Skyrme model -- with the pion field only -- and is left unscathed by massive degrees of freedom such as the vector mesons $ρ$ and $ω$ and also the scalar meson introduced as a dilaton. It leads to the emergence of parity-doubling at the skyrmion-half-skyrmion transition and impacts on the nuclear symmetry energy "wilderness" landscape, weeding out roughly half of the wilderness. It is shown t…
We investigate the physical implications of formulating the electroweak (EW) part of the Standard Model (SM) in terms of a superconnection involving the supergroup SU(2/1). In particular, we relate the observed Higgs mass to new physics at around 4 TeV. The ultraviolet incompleteness of the superconnection approach points to its emergent nature. The new physics beyond the SM is associated with the emergent supergroup SU(2/2), which is natural from the point of view of the Pati-Salam model. Given that the Pati-Salam group is robust in certain constructions of string vacua, these results suggest…
It has been shown in a recent paper that the Higgs quartic and Yukawa sectors of the Standard Model (SM) with a heavy fourth generation exhibit at a two-loop level a quasi fixed point structure instead of the one-loop Landau singularity and which could be located in the TeV region, a scale which is denoted by $Λ_{FP} $ in this paper. This provides the possibility of the existence of a TeV-scale physical cutoff endowed with several implications. In the vicinity of this quasi fixed point bound states and Higgs-like condensates made up of the 4th generation quarks and leptons get formed. It impli…
We analyze quasi-topological solitons winding around a mexican-hat potential in two space-time dimensions. They are prototypes for a large number of physical excitations, including Skyrmions of the Higgs sector of the standard electroweak model, magnetic bubbles in thin ferromagnetic films, and strings in certain non-trivial backgrounds. We present explicit solutions, derive the conditions for classical stability, and show that contrary to the naive expectation these can be satisfied in the weak-coupling limit. In this limit we can calculate the soliton properties reliably, and estimate their …
We present a new mechanism for electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) based on a strong Yukawa dynamics. We consider an SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y gauge invariant model endowed with the usual Standard model fermion multiplets and with two massive scalar doublets. We show that, unlike in the Standard model, EWSB is possible even with vanishing vacuum expectation values of the scalars. Such EWSB is achieved dynamically by means of the (presumably strong) Yukawa couplings and manifests itself by the emergence of fermion and gauge boson masses and scalar mass-splittings, which are expressed in a closed form i…
By analogy with the solution of the classical physics problems achieved not by an extension of the established dynamic and symmetry knowledge but by the emergence of a fundamentally new empirical physical constant h leading to quantum mechanics, I address in this paper the known basic problems of lepton mass ratios, neutrino type and electroweak charges in terms of an emerging new dimensionless flavor-electroweak physical constant of a new sort. A special value of that new universal constant is suggested av0 = exp(-5). Like the Plank constant h, initially closely related to suggested discrete …
The Two Higgs Doublet Model predicts the emergence of 3 distinct domain wall solutions arising from the breaking of 3 accidental global symmetries, $Z_2$, CP1 and CP2, at the electroweak scale for specific choices of the model parameters. We present numerical kink solutions to the field equations in all three cases along with dynamical simulations of the models in (2+1) and (3+1) dimensions. For each kink solution we define an associated topological current. In all three cases simulations produce a network of domain walls which deviates from power law scaling in Minkowski and FRW simulations. …
Simple scalar-singlet extensions of the Standard Model with a (spontaneously broken) $Z_2$ symmetry allow for a strong first order electroweak phase transition, as sought in order to realize electroweak baryogenesis. However they generically also lead to the emergence of phenomenologically problematic domain walls. Here we present a framework with a real scalar singlet that features a different thermal history that avoids this problem by never restoring the $Z_2$ symmetry in the early universe. This is accomplished by considering $D>4$ operators that emerge on general grounds, understanding th…
In the quest for unification of the Standard Model with gravity, classical scale invariance can be utilized to dynamically generate the Planck mass $M_\mathrm{Pl}$. Then, the relation of Planck scale physics to the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking $μ_H$ requires further explanation. In this paper, we propose a model that uses the spontaneous breaking of scale invariance in the scalar sector as a unified origin for dynamical generation of both scales. Using the Gildener-Weinberg approximation, only one scalar acquires a vacuum expectation value of $v_S \sim (10^{16-17})\,\mathrm{GeV}$, th…
In all scalar extensions of the standard model of particle interactions, the one Higgs boson responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking always mixes with other neutral scalars at tree level unless a symmetry prevents it. An unexplored important option is that the mixing may be radiative, and thus guaranteed to be small. Two first such examples are discussed. One is based on the soft breaking of the discrete symmetry $Z_3$. The other starts with the non-Abelian discrete symmetry $A_4$ which is then softly broken to $Z_3$, and results in the emergence of an interesting dark-matter candidate t…
