Radion-activated Higgs mechanism

Abstract

We study multi-scalar models of radius stabilization, with an eye towards application to novel extra-dimensional models of symmetry breaking. With inspiration from holography, we construct a multi-scalar effective potential that is a function of UV-brane values of the scalar fields, and that takes into account bulk gravitational backreaction. We study extrema of this potential, and additionally provide a "superpotential" method for generating static solutions for the extra-dimensional geometry. We apply these methods to some simple models of the Higgs mechanism where the Higgs itself plays a non-trivial role in radius stabilization. We note that tuning of the Higgs mass relative to the Kaluza-Klein scale is related to various types of tuning of 5D parameters, with different resulting spectra and phenomenologies.