arXiv subjects

Riccardo Rattazzi

Publications and source records attributed to Riccardo Rattazzi.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Which EFT

We classify effective field theory (EFT) deformations of the Standard Model (SM) according to the analyticity property of the Lagrangian as a function of the Higgs doublet H. Our distinction in analytic and non-analytic corresponds to the more familiar one between linearly and non-linearly realized electroweak symmetry, but offers deeper physical insight. From the UV perspective, non-analyticity occurs when the new states acquire mass from electroweak symmetry breaking, and thus cannot be decoupled to arbitrarily high scales. This is reflected in the IR by the anomalous growth of the interaction strength for processes involving many Higgs bosons and longitudinally polarized massive vectors, with a breakdown of the EFT description below a scale $O(4 πv)$. Conversely, analyticity occurs when new physics can be pushed parametrically above the electroweak scale. We illustrate the physical distinction between these two EFT families by discussing Higgs boson self-interactions. In the analytic case, at the price of some unnaturalness in the Higgs potential, there exists space for $O(1)$ deviations of the cubic coupling, compatible with single Higgs and electroweak precision measurements, and with new particles out of the direct LHC reach. Larger deviations are possible, but subject to less robust assumptions about higher-dimensional operators in the Higgs potential. On the other hand, when the cubic coupling is produced by a non-analytic deformation of the SM, we show by an explicit calculation that the theory reaches strong coupling at $O(4 πv)$, quite independently of the magnitude of the cubic enhancement.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Electroweak Baryogenesis above the Electroweak Scale

Conventional scenarios of electroweak (EW) baryogenesis are strongly constrained by experimental searches for CP violation beyond the SM. We propose an alternative scenario where the EW phase transition and baryogenesis occur at temperatures of the order of a new physics threshold $Λ$ far above the Fermi scale, say, in the $100-1000$ TeV range. This way the needed new sources of CP-violation, together with possible associated flavor-violating effects, decouple from low energy observables. The key ingredient is a new CP- and flavor-conserving sector at the Fermi scale that ensures the EW symmetry remains broken and sphalerons suppressed at all temperatures below $Λ$. We analyze a minimal incarnation based on a linear $O(N)$ model. We identify a specific large-$N$ limit where the effects of the new sector are vanishingly small at zero temperature while being significant at finite temperature. This crucially helps the construction of realistic models. A number of accidental factors, ultimately related to the size of the relevant SM couplings, force $N$ to be above $\sim 100$. Such a large $N$ may seem bizarre, but it does affect the simplicity of the model and in fact it allows us to carry out a consistent re-summation of the leading contributions to the thermal effective potential. Extensions of the SM Higgs sector can be compatible with smaller values $N\sim 20-30$. Collider signatures are all parametrically suppressed by inverse powers of $N$ and may be challenging to probe, but present constraints from direct dark matter searches cannot be accommodated in the minimal model. We discuss various extensions that satisfy all current bounds. One of these involves a new gauge force confining at scales between $\sim1$ GeV and the weak scale.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

Precision Tests and Fine Tuning in Twin Higgs Models

We analyze the parametric structure of Twin Higgs (TH) theories and assess the gain in fine tuning which they enable compared to extensions of the Standard Model with colored top partners. Estimates show that, at least in the simplest realizations of the TH idea, the separation between the mass of new colored particles and the electroweak scale is controlled by the coupling strength of the underlying UV theory, and that a parametric gain is achieved only for strongly-coupled dynamics. Motivated by this consideration we focus on one of these simple realizations, namely composite TH theories, and study how well such constructions can reproduce electroweak precision data. The most important effect of the Twin states is found to be the infrared contribution to the Higgs quartic coupling, while direct corrections to electroweak observables are sub-leading and negligible. We perform a careful fit to the electroweak data including the leading-logarithmic corrections to the Higgs quartic up to three loops. Our analysis shows that agreement with electroweak precision tests can be achieved with only a moderate amount of tuning, in the range 5-10\%, in theories where colored states have mass of order 3-5 TeV and are thus out of reach of the LHC. For these levels of tuning, larger masses are excluded by a perturbativity bound, which makes these theories possibly discoverable, hence falsifiable, only at a future 100 TeV collider.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Rotating superfluids and spinning charged operators in conformal field theory

We calculate the scaling dimensions of operators with large global charge and spin in 2+1 dimensional conformal field theories. By the state-operator correspondence, these operators correspond to superfluids with vortices and can be systematically studied using effective field theory. As the spin increases from zero to the unitarity bound, the superfluid state corresponding to the lowest dimension operator passes through three distinct regimes: (1) a single phonon, (2) two vortices, and (3) multiple vortices. We also calculate correlation functions with two such operators and the Noether current.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

Gaugid inflation

The spectrum of primordial gravitational waves is one of the most robust inflationary observables, often thought of as a direct probe of the energy scale of inflation. We present a simple model, where the dynamics controlling this observable is very different than in the standard paradigm of inflation. The model is based on a peculiar finite density phase---the magnetic gaugid---which stems from a highly non-linear effective theory of a triplet of abelian gauge fields. The gaugid extends the notion of homogeneous isotropic solid, in that its spectrum of fluctuations includes helicity-2 phonons. We show how, upon implementing the gaugid to drive inflation, the helicity-2 phonon mixes with the graviton, significantly affecting the size of the primordial tensor spectrum. The rest of the features of the theory, in particular the vector and scalar perturbations, closely resemble those of solid inflation.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Semiclassics, Goldstone Bosons and CFT data

Hellerman et al. (arXiv:1505.01537) have shown that in a generic CFT the spectrum of operators carrying a large U(1) charge can be analyzed semiclassically in an expansion in inverse powers of the charge. The key is the operator state correspondence by which such operators are associated with a finite density superfluid phase for the theory quantized on the cylinder. The dynamics is dominated by the corresponding Goldstone hydrodynamic mode and the derivative expansion coincides with the inverse charge expansion. We illustrate and further clarify this situation by first considering simple quantum mechanical analogues. We then systematize the approach by employing the coset construction for non-linearly realized space-time symmetries. Focussing on CFT3 we illustrate the case of higher rank and non-abelian groups and the computation of higher point functions. Three point function coefficients turn out to satisfy universal scaling laws and correlations as the charge and spin are varied.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Patterns of Strong Coupling for LHC Searches

Even though the Standard Model (SM) is weakly coupled at the Fermi scale, a new strong dynamics involving its degrees of freedom may conceivably lurk at slightly higher energies, in the multi TeV range. Approximate symmetries provide a structurally robust context where, within the low energy description, the dimensionless SM couplings are weak, while the new strong dynamics manifests itself exclusively through higher-derivative interactions. We present an exhaustive classification of such scenarios in the form of effective field theories, paying special attention to new classes of models where the strong dynamics involves, along with the Higgs boson, the SM gauge bosons and/or the fermions. The IR softness of the new dynamics suppresses its effects at LEP energies, but deviations are in principle detectable at the LHC, even at energies below the threshold for production of new states. Our construction provides the so far unique structurally robust context where to motivate several searches in Higgs physics, diboson production, or WW scattering, which were so far poorly justified. Perhaps surprisingly, the interplay between weak coupling, strong coupling and derivatives, which is controlled by symmetries, can override the naive expansion in operator dimension, providing instances where dimension-8 dominates dimension-6, well within the domain of validity of the low energy effective theory. This result reveals the limitations of an analysis that is both ambitiously general and restricted to dimension-6 operators.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

What is the gamma gamma resonance at 750 GeV?

Run 2 LHC data show hints of a new resonance in the diphoton distribution at an invariant mass of 750 GeV. We analyse the data in terms of a new boson, extracting information on its properties and exploring theoretical interpretations. Scenarios covered include a narrow resonance and, as preliminary indications suggest, a wider resonance. If the width indications persist, the new particle is likely to belong to a strongly-interacting sector. We also show how compatibility between Run 1 and Run 2 data is improved by postulating the existence of an additional heavy particle, whose decays are possibly related to dark matter.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

A Clockwork Axion

We present a renormalizable theory of scalars in which the low energy effective theory contains a pseudo-Goldstone Boson with a compact field space of 2π F and an approximate discrete shift symmetry Z_Q with Q>>1, yet the number of fields in the theory goes as log(Q). Such a model can serve as a UV completion to models of relaxions and is a new source of exponential scale separation in field theory. While the model is local in `theory space', it appears to not have a continuum generalization (i.e., it cannot be a deconstructed extra dimension). Our framework shows that super-Planckian field excursions can be mimicked while sticking to renormalizable four-dimensional quantum field theory. We show that a supersymmetric extension is straightforwardly obtained and we illustrate possible UV completions based on a compact extra-dimension, where all global symmetries arise accidentally as a consequence of gauge invariance and 5D locality.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

The local Callan-Symanzik equation: structure and applications

The local Callan-Symanzik equation describes the response of a quantum field theory to local scale transformations in the presence of background sources. The consistency conditions associated with this anomalous equation imply non-trivial relations among the $β$-function, the anomalous dimensions of composite operators and the short distance singularities of correlators. In this paper we discuss various aspects of the local Callan-Symanzik equation and present new results regarding the structure of its anomaly. We then use the equation to systematically write the n-point correlators involving the trace of the energy-momentum tensor. We use the latter result to give a fully detailed proof that the UV and IR asymptotics in a neighbourhood of a 4D CFT must also correspond to CFTs. We also clarify the relation between the matrix entering the gradient flow formula for the $β$-function and a manifestly positive metric in coupling space associated with matrix elements of the trace of the energy momentum tensor.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

The Composite Twin Higgs scenario

Based on an explicit model, we propose and discuss the generic features of a possible implementation of the Twin Higgs program in the context of composite Higgs models. We find that the Twin Higgs quadratic divergence cancellation argument can be uplifted to a genuine protection of the Higgs potential, based on symmetries and selection rules, but only under certain conditions which are not fulfilled in some of the existing models. We also find that a viable scenario, not plagued by a massless Twin Photon, can be obtained by not gauging the Twin Hypercharge and taking this as the only source of Twin Symmetry breaking at a very high scale.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

OPE Convergence in Conformal Field Theory

We clarify questions related to the convergence of the OPE and conformal block decomposition in unitary Conformal Field Theories (for any number of spacetime dimensions). In particular, we explain why these expansions are convergent in a finite region. We also show that the convergence is exponentially fast, in the sense that the operators of dimension above Delta contribute to correlation functions at most exp(-a Delta). Here the constant a>0 depends on the positions of operator insertions and we compute it explicitly.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Zoology of condensed matter: Framids, ordinary stuff, extra-ordinary stuff

We classify condensed matter systems in terms of the spacetime symmetries they spontaneously break. In particular, we characterize condensed matter itself as any state in a Poincaré-invariant theory that spontaneously breaks Lorentz boosts while preserving at large distances some form of spatial translations, time-translations, and possibly spatial rotations. Surprisingly, the simplest, most minimal system achieving this symmetry breaking pattern---the "framid"---does not seem to be realized in Nature. Instead, Nature usually adopts a more cumbersome strategy: that of introducing internal translational symmetries---and possibly rotational ones---and of spontaneously breaking them along with their space-time counterparts, while preserving unbroken diagonal subgroups. This symmetry breaking pattern describes the infrared dynamics of ordinary solids, fluids, superfluids, and---if they exist---supersolids. A third, "extra-ordinary", possibility involves replacing these internal symmetries with other symmetries that do not commute with the Poincaré group, for instance the galileon symmetry, supersymmetry or gauge symmetries. Among these options, we pick the systems based on the galileon symmetry, the "galileids", for a more detailed study. Despite some similarity, all different patterns produce truly distinct physical systems with different observable properties. For instance, the low-energy $2\to 2$ scattering amplitudes for the Goldstone excitations in the cases of framids, solids and galileids scale respectively as $E^2$, $E^4$, and $E^6$. Similarly the energy momentum tensor in the ground state is "trivial" for framids ($ρ+p=0$), normal for solids ($ρ+p>0$) and even inhomogenous for galileids.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Strong Higgs Interactions at a Linear Collider

We study the impact of Higgs precision measurements at a high-energy and high-luminosity linear electron positron collider, such as CLIC or the ILC, on the parameter space of a strongly interacting Higgs boson. Some combination of anomalous couplings are already tightly constrained by current fits to electroweak observables. However, even small deviations in the cross sections of single and double Higgs production, or the mere detection of a triple Higgs final state, can help establish whether it is a composite state and whether or not it emerges as a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson from an underlying broken symmetry. We obtain an estimate of the ILC and CLIC sensitivities on the anomalous Higgs couplings from a study of WW scattering and hh production which can be translated into a sensitivity on the compositeness scale 4πf, or equivalently on the degree of compositeness ξ=v^2/f^2. We summarize the current experimental constraints, from electroweak data and direct resonance searches, and the expected reach of the LHC and CLIC on ξand on the scale of the new resonances.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

A naturally light dilaton

Goldstone's theorem does not apply straightforwardly to the case of spontaneously broken scale invariance. We elucidate under what conditions a light scalar degree of freedom, identifiable with the dilaton, can naturally arise. Our construction can be considered an explicit dynamical solution to the cosmological constant problem in the scalar version of gravity.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

On the effect of resonances in composite Higgs phenomenology

We consider a generic composite Higgs model based on the coset SO(5)/SO(4) and study its phenomenology beyond the leading low-energy effective lagrangian approximation. Our basic goal is to introduce in a controllable and simple way the lowest-lying, possibly narrow, resonances that may exist is such models. We do so by proposing a criterion that we call partial UV completion. We characterize the simplest cases, corresponding respectively to a scalar in either singlet or tensor representation of SO(4) and to vectors in the adjoint of SO(4). We study the impact of these resonances on the signals associated to high-energy vector boson scattering, pointing out for each resonance the characteristic patterns of depletion and enhancement with respect to the leading-order chiral lagrangian. En route we derive the O(p^4) general chiral lagrangian and discuss its peculiar accidental and approximate symmetries.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

A First Top Partner Hunter's Guide

We provide a systematic effective lagrangian description of the phenomenology of the lightest top-partners in composite Higgs models. Our construction is based on symmetry, on selection rules and on plausible dynamical assumptions. The structure of the resulting simplified models depends on the quantum numbers of the lightest top partner and of the operators involved in the generation of the top Yukawa. In all cases the phenomenology is conveniently described by a small number of parameters, and the results of experimental searches are readily interpreted as a test of naturalness. We recast presently available experimental bounds on heavy fermions into bounds on top partners: LHC has already stepped well inside the natural region of parameter space.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

The $a$-theorem and the Asymptotics of 4D Quantum Field Theory

We study the possible IR and UV asymptotics of 4D Lorentz invariant unitary quantum field theory. Our main tool is a generalization of the Komargodski-Schwimmer proof for the $a$-theorem. We use this to rule out a large class of renormalization group flows that do not asymptote to conformal field theories in the UV and IR. We show that if the IR (UV) asymptotics is described by perturbation theory, all beta functions must vanish faster than $(1/|\lnμ|)^{1/2}$ as $μ\to 0$ ($μ\to \infty$). This implies that the only possible asymptotics within perturbation theory is conformal field theory. In particular, it rules out perturbative theories with scale but not conformal invariance, which are equivalent to theories with renormalization group pseudocycles. Our arguments hold even for theories with gravitational anomalies. We also give a non-perturbative argument that excludes theories with scale but not conformal invariance. This argument holds for theories in which the stress-energy tensor is sufficiently nontrivial in a technical sense that we make precise.

hep-th↗