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 conclude that mass mixing of the Higgs and radion is generic unless additional symmetries are imposed. We focus on models with moderate gap between the electroweak and Kaluza-Klein scale, as required by phenomenological constraints. We note that tuning of the Higgs mass relative to the KK scale is related to various classes of tuning of 5D parameters, with different resulting spectra and phenomenologies.