Electroweak symmetry breaking by gravity

Abstract

We consider a simple scale-invariant action coupling the Higgs field to the metric scalar curvature $R$ and containing an $R^2$ term that exhibits spontaneous breaking of scale invariance and electroweak symmetry. The coefficient of the $R^2$ term in this case determines the self-coupling of the Higgs boson in the Einstein frame, and the scalaron becomes a dilaton weakly coupled to the Higgs boson. Majorana mass terms for right-handed neutrinos can be generated in a scale-invariant manner by using the Higgs-field invariant; in this case, the existing experimental limits on the Higgs-boson total width rule out Majorana mass values in a certain range. The model inherits the naturalness issues of general relativity connected with the smallness of the gravitational and cosmological constants.

arXiv comment10 pages, one paragraph added, equation (2.20) corrected, matches the published version

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Inflation in Weyl-invariant Einstein-Cartan gravity
• Spacetime and Planck mass generation from scale-invariant degenerate gravity
• Dynamically induced spin-2 mass in a Weyl-invariant framework