The Minimal Moose for a Little Higgs

Abstract

Recently a new class of theories of electroweak symmetry breaking have been\nconstructed. These models, based on deconstruction and the physics of theory\nspace, provide the first alternative to weak-scale supersymmetry with naturally\nlight Higgs fields and perturbative new physics at the TeV scale. The Higgs is\nlight because it is a pseudo-Goldstone boson, and the quadratically divergent\ncontributions to the Higgs mass are cancelled by new TeV scale ``partners'' of\nthe {\\em same} statistics. In this paper we present the minimal theory space\nmodel of electroweak symmetry breaking, with two sites and four link fields,\nand the minimal set of fermions. There are very few parameters and degrees of\nfreedom beyond the Standard Model. Below a TeV, we have the Standard Model with\ntwo light Higgs doublets, and an additional complex scalar weak triplet and\nsinglet. At the TeV scale, the new particles that cancel the 1-loop quadratic\ndivergences in the Higgs mass are revealed. The entire Higgs potential needed\nfor electroweak symmetry breaking--the quartic couplings as well as the\nfamiliar negative mass squared--can be generated by the top Yukawa coupling,\nproviding a novel link between the physics of flavor and electroweak symmetry\nbreaking.\n