Model-independent Veltman Condition, Naturalness and the Little Hierarchy Problem

Abstract

We adopt a bottom-up Effective Field Theory (EFT) approach to derive a model-independent Veltman condition to cancel the quadratic divergences in the Higgs mass. We show using the equivalence theorem that all deviations in the Higgs couplings to the W and Z from the SM predictions should vanish. We argue based on tree-level unitarity, that any new physics that naturally cancels the quadratic divergences should be ~19 TeV. We show that the level of fine-tuning required is O(0.1- 1%) unless the UV sector has a symmetry that forces the satisfaction of the model-independent Veltman condition, in which case all fine-tuning is eliminated. We also conjecture that if no new physics that couples to the Higgs is found up to ~ 19 TeV, or if the Higgs couplings to the SM particles conform to the SM predictions, then either the Higgs does not couple to any UV sector or is fine-tuned.