Physics (Internal)

Aspects of Higgs Physics

This event is part of the PhD Final Oral Exams.

Examining Committee: Ken Lane, Liam Fitzpatrick, Kevin Black, Chris Grant, Chris Laumann

The Higgs sector is the collection of elds and particles responsible for the spontaneous symmetry breaking of the electroweak symmetry. It is the keystone of the Standard Model of particle physics. While the Standard Model Higgs sector is in agreement with current experiments alternative models often arise to explain experimental anomalies, or to answer puzzles about the Higgs model itself. In this dissertation I explore two such alternative models of the Higgs sector. The rst is a model of a composite Higgs boson that is designed to be \minimally ne-tuned." I demonstrate how it generates a light Higgs boson with one ne-tuned parameter. The most accessible expected phenomenological signatures of such a model are heavy resonances decaying into weak vector bosons. I compare the predicted behavior of these resonances to recent experiments at the Large Hadron Collider.