Softened Goldstone-Symmetry Breaking

Abstract: We propose a new way of breaking the Goldstone symmetry in composite Higgs models, restoring the global symmetry in the mixings between the elementary and composite fermions by completing the former to full representations of this symmetry. The Goldstone symmetry is in turn broken softly by vector-like mass terms in the {\it elementary} sector only. The resulting softened explicit breaking allows for a light Higgs boson, as found at the LHC, and a heavy top quark, without the need of light top partners around the Goldstone scale $f \sim {\rm TeV} \ll m_{\rm comp.}$, which remain elusive at the LHC, while we recover the standard scenario in the limit of infinite vector-like masses.