Electroweak Symmetry Breaking and the Higgs Boson: Confronting Theories at Colliders

TL;DR

This review discusses methods to analyze collider data for the Higgs boson, constrains electroweak symmetry breaking models, and explores how Higgs measurements can reveal new physics at the LHC.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for constraining a five-dimensional parameter space of electroweak symmetry breaking models using collider data.

Findings

Methods for reconstructing experimental likelihoods

Constraints on model-independent electroweak symmetry breaking

Implications of Higgs coupling measurements for new physics

Abstract

In this review, we discuss methods of parsing direct and indirect information from collider experiments regarding the Higgs boson and describe simple ways in which experimental likelihoods can be consistently reconstructed and interfaced with model predictions in pertinent parameter spaces. Ultimately these methods are used to constrain a five-dimensional parameter space describing a model-independent framework for electroweak symmetry breaking. We review prevalent scenarios for extending the electroweak symmetry breaking sector relative to the Standard Model and emphasize their predictions for nonstandard Higgs phenomenology that could be observed in LHC data if naturalness is realized in particular ways. Specifically we identify how measurements of Higgs couplings can be used to imply the existence of new physics at particular scales within various contexts, highlighting some parameter spaces of interest in order to give examples of how the data surrounding the new state can most effectively be used to constrain specific models of weak scale physics.