Origin of mass scales and hierarchies

最近几年粒子物理学的新闻主要是希格斯玻色子的发现。这一发现完善了标准模型，所有其他粒子的质量起源现在都可以归结为希格斯机制。这样一来，人们可能会觉得这个领域处于一种解决和理解的状态，但事实远非如此。对希格斯粒子质量本身的理解仍然缺乏，希格斯粒子与费米子耦合的起源仍然未知。特别是，根据量子场论的规则，希格斯质量的观测值是非常不自然的。在大型强子对撞机的1号运行中，缺乏任何其他新物理学的证据，这使得这个难题变得尤为严峻。我们建议研究两种可能性，并期望Run 2将决定哪一种更接近现实。第一种是希格斯粒子描述在大型强子对撞机运行2的能量范围内失效。我已经并将继续发展这类理论以及它所做出的预测。它意味着实验和理论物理学的一个激动人心的时刻，因为TeV尺度的新物理学正在展开。第二种可能性是，存在基本希格斯玻色子的证据仍在不断积累。这种情况下的理论含义是深远的，并且需要我们将理论严格限制到极高的能量。这是因为希格斯粒子的质量对所有更高的质量尺度都很敏感，包括重力。希格斯质量的问题在某些方面类似于宇宙学中的暗能量问题，我们将这些问题视为量子引力理论的宝贵线索

The news in particle physics the last few years has been dominated by discovery of the Higgs boson. This discovery completes the standard model and the origin of mass of all other particles can now be attributed to the Higgs mechanism. The impression may then be that the field is in a state of resolution and understanding, but in fact this is far from the case. An understanding of the Higgs mass itself is still lacking and the origin of the Higgs couplings to fermions is still unknown. In particular the observed value of the Higgs mass is deeply unnatural given the rules of quantum field theory. The lack of evidence for any other new physics at Run 1 at the LHC makes this conundrum especially severe. We propose to study two possibilities, with the expectation that Run 2 will decide which, if either, is close to reality. The first is that the Higgs description breaks down within the energy range of Run 2 at the LHC. I have and will continue to develop this type of theory and the predictions it makes. It implies an exciting time for experimental and theoretical physics as the new physics of the TeV scale unfolds. The second possibility is that evidence continues to build for an elementary Higgs boson. The theoretical implications in this case are far reaching and will require us to tightly constrain the theory up to extremely high energies. This is because of the sensitivity of the Higgs mass to all higher mass scales, including that of gravity. The problem of the Higgs mass is similar in some respects to the problem of dark energy in cosmology, and we view these problems as valuable clues to the quantum theory of gravity.**