https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-013-2537-0
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Evading death by vacuum
1
Centro de Física Teórica e Computacional, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Prof. Gama Pinto 2, 1649-003, Lisboa, Portugal
2
Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa, 1959-007, Lisboa, Portugal
3
IFPA, Université de Liége, Allée du 6 Août 17, bâtiment B5a, 4000, Liége, Belgium
4
Sobolev Institute of Mathematics, Koptyug Avenue 4, 630090, Novosibirsk, Russia
5
Centro de Física Teórica de Partículas (CFTP), Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, 1049-001, Lisboa, Portugal
* e-mail: rsantos@cii.fc.ul.pt
Received:
18
March
2013
Revised:
15
June
2013
Published online:
4
September
2013
In the Standard Model, the Higgs potential allows only one minimum at tree level. But the open possibility that there might be two scalar doublets enriches the vacuum structure, allowing for the risk that we might now be in a metastable state, which we dub the panic vacuum. Current experiments at the LHC are probing the Higgs particle predicted as a result of the spontaneous symmetry breaking. Remarkably, in the two Higgs model with a softly broken U(1) symmetry, the LHC experiments already allow to exclude many panic vacuum solutions.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg and Società Italiana di Fisica, 2013
