A (critical) review of electroweak symmetry breaking

Abstract

An overview of models of electroweak symmetry breaking is presented. First we explain the little hierarchy problem and show how it is manifested in supersymmetric theories. Then ways of avoiding the little hierarchy in SUSY models is shown, which fall into two classes: hiding the higgs at LEP or increasing the quartic self coupling of the higgs, both of which call for extensions of the MSSM. In the second half strongly interacting theories of electroweak symmetry breaking are reviewed, including technicolor and monopole condensation models. Particular attention is paid to warped extra dimensional theories and its cousins (higgsless, little higgs and composite higgs models.