Electroweak Symmetry Breaking in the DSSM

TL;DR

This paper explores how modifying the Kahler potential in the MSSM Higgs sector, influenced by a quasi-hidden conformal sector, can lead to a heavier Higgs boson and distinct phenomenology, while maintaining unification and electroweak consistency.

Contribution

It introduces the Delta-deformed Supersymmetric Standard Model (DSSM) with non-trivial Higgs operator scaling, connecting string-motivated models to phenomenological implications.

Findings

Higgs can be naturally heavier than W and Z bosons.

Perturbative gauge coupling unification is preserved near Delta=1.

Rich collider phenomenology from hidden sector states.

Abstract

We study the theoretical and phenomenological consequences of modifying the Kahler potential of the MSSM two Higgs doublet sector. Such modifications naturally arise when the Higgs sector mixes with a quasi-hidden conformal sector, as in some F-theory GUT models. In the Delta-deformed Supersymmetric Standard Model (DSSM), the Higgs fields are operators with non-trivial scaling dimension 1 < Delta < 2. The Kahler metric is singular at the origin of field space due to the presence of quasi-hidden sector states which get their mass from the Higgs vevs. The presence of these extra states leads to the fact that even as Delta approaches 1, the DSSM does not reduce to the MSSM. In particular, the Higgs can naturally be heavier than the W- and Z-bosons. Perturbative gauge coupling unification, a large top quark Yukawa, and consistency with precision electroweak can all be maintained for Delta close to unity. Moreover, such values of Delta can naturally be obtained in string-motivated constructions. The quasi-hidden sector generically contains states charged under SU(5)_GUT as well as gauge singlets, leading to a rich, albeit model-dependent, collider phenomenology.