Can A Pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone Higgs Lead To Symmetry Non-Restoration?

TL;DR

This paper investigates whether finite temperature effects can prevent electroweak symmetry restoration in models where the Higgs is a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson, using the Twin Higgs model as a case study.

Contribution

It demonstrates that thermal corrections cancel at quadratic divergence level but still lead to symmetry restoration in pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone Higgs models.

Findings

Thermal corrections cancel at quadratic divergence level in Twin Higgs model.

Subleading thermal corrections still restore electroweak symmetry.

Results likely extend to other natural Higgs models with global symmetries.

Abstract

The calculation of finite temperature contributions to the scalar potential in a quantum field theory is similar to the calculation of loop corrections at zero temperature. In natural extensions of the Standard Model where loop corrections to the Higgs potential cancel between Standard Model degrees of freedom and their symmetry partners, it is interesting to contemplate whether finite temperature corrections also cancel, raising the question of whether a broken phase of electroweak symmetry may persist at high temperature. It is well known that this does not happen in supersymmetric theories because the thermal contributions of bosons and fermions do not cancel each other. However, for theories with same spin partners, the answer is less obvious. Using the Twin Higgs model as a benchmark, we show that although thermal corrections do cancel at the level of quadratic divergences, subleading corrections still drive the system to a restored phase. We further argue that our conclusions generalize to other well-known extensions of the Standard Model where the Higgs is rendered natural by being the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone mode of an approximate global symmetry.