Theory Group Seminar, 18 January 2013
Dr. Ann Nelson, University of Washington, Seattle
Little Flavor
abstract
Little higgs models are theories in which the higgs boson is a pseudo Goldstone boson. The Higgs potential is protected against renormaliztion by multiple symmetries, and the Higgs couplings result from a sparse collection of symmetry breaking terms. In this talk I will describe a model in which the symmetries that protect the Higgs mass play a dual role as flavor symmetries, and describe a model where the flavor physics involves new particles with masses between 1 and 10 TeV. Flavor Changing Neutral currents are kept under control by the same symmetries which protect the Higgs mass and the flavor hierarchy.