ElectroWeak Symmetry Breaking as of 2003, on the way to the Large Hadron Collider

TL;DR

This paper reviews the status of Electroweak Symmetry Breaking as of 2003, discussing current experimental constraints, the little hierarchy problem, and a proposal involving extra dimensions and boundary conditions for supersymmetry breaking.

Contribution

It provides an overview of experimental data impact on EWSB and introduces a novel approach using boundary conditions in extra dimensions for supersymmetry breaking.

Findings

Current data constrains EWSB models

The little hierarchy problem remains significant

Boundary conditions in extra dimensions offer a new EWSB mechanism

Abstract

I review the status of the ElectroWeak Symmetry Breaking problem. The lectures are naturally divided into two parts. The first is mostly devoted to overview the impact of current data on the issue of EWSB. The tools are known, the latest data are included. Always in the first part, I say why I care about the "little hierarchy" problem and I summarize how some proposals for EWSB, recent and less recent, are confronted with this problem. Motivated by these considerations, in the second part I describe the essential features of a proposal for breaking supersymmetry, and consequently the electroweak symmetry, by boundary conditions on an extra dimension.