Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2013) 128: 40
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2013-13040-2

Regular Article

Unitary standard model from spontaneous dimensional reduction and weak boson scattering at the LHC

¹³³¹ Institute of Modern Physics and Center for High Energy Physics, Tsinghua University, 100084, Beijing, China
²³³¹ Center for High Energy Physics, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China
³³³¹ Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics China, CAS, 100190, Beijing, China

^* e-mail: hjhe@tsinghua.edu.cn

Received: 27 February 2013
Revised: 28 March 2013
Accepted: 29 March 2013
Published online: 18 April 2013

Abstract

Spontaneous dimensional reduction (SDR) is a striking phenomenon predicted by a number of quantum gravity approaches which all indicate that the spacetime dimensions get reduced at high energies. In this work, we formulate an effective theory of electroweak interactions based upon the standard model, incorporating the spontaneous reduction of space-dimensions at TeV scale. The electroweak gauge symmetry is nonlinearly realized with or without a Higgs boson. We demonstrate that the SDR ensures good high-energy behavior and predicts unitary weak boson scattering. For a light Higgs boson of mass 125GeV, the TeV scale SDR gives a natural solution to the hierarchy problem. Such a light Higgs boson can have induced anomalous gauge couplings from the TeV scale SDR. We find that the corresponding WW scattering cross sections become unitary at TeV scale, but exhibit different behaviors from that of the 4d standard model. These can be discriminated by the WW scattering experiments at the LHC.