Self-Organized Higgs Criticality

TL;DR

This paper introduces a 5D holographic model where Higgs criticality emerges dynamically due to an instability associated with a violation of the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound, leading to complex scaling and potential condensate formation.

Contribution

It constructs a novel 5D model demonstrating self-organized Higgs criticality through an instability linked to a running scaling dimension and explores its vacuum structure and cosmological implications.

Findings

Higgs instability arises from Breitenlohner-Freedman bound violation

Complex scaling dimension indicates a condensate-driven instability

Resolution involves non-trivial cosmological dynamics

Abstract

The critical point for a Higgs sector can be a point of interest in the potential for a modulus field such as the radion of an extra dimensional construction, or the dilaton of spontaneously broken approximate conformal invariance. In part motivated by conjectures about the self-organized critical state in statistical physics, we construct a 5D model in which there is an infrared emergent Higgs instability due to violation of the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound deep in the interior of a near AdS geometry. This is holographically dual to a "running" scaling dimension transitioning from real to complex with decreasing scale. The complex scaling indicates an instability to be resolved by condensates which modify the interior geometry and backreact on the 5D radion potential. Studying the model at small gravitational backreaction, we find a rich possible vacuum structure and uncover evidence that resolution of the instability requires a non-trivial cosmology.