Dynamical Electroweak Symmetry Breaking with a Heavy Fermion in Light of Recent LHC Results

Abstract

The recent announcement of a discovery of a possible Higgs-like particle—its spin and parity are yet to be determined—at the LHC with a mass of 126 GeV necessitates a fresh look at the nature of the electroweak symmetry breaking, in particular if this newly-discovered particle will turn out to have the quantum numbers of a Standard Model Higgs boson. Even if it were a 0+ scalar with the properties expected for a SM Higgs boson, there is still the quintessential hierarchy problem that one has to deal with and which, by itself, suggests a new physics energy scale around 1 TeV. This paper presents a minireview of one possible scenario: the formation of a fermion-antifermion condensate coming from a very heavy fourth generation, carrying the quantum number of the SM Higgs field, and thus breaking the electroweak symmetry.