Radiative Electroweak Symmetry-Breaking Revisited

Abstract

In the absence of a tree-level scalar-field mass, renormalization-group methods permit the explicit summation of leading-logarithm contributions to all orders of the perturbative series within the effective potential for $SU(2)\times U(1)$ electroweak symmetry. This improvement of the effective potential function is seen to reduce residual dependence on the renormalization mass scale. The all-orders summation of leading logarithm terms involving the dominant three couplings contributing to radiative corrections is suggestive of a potential characterized by a plausible Higgs boson mass of 216 GeV. However, the tree potential's local minimum at $\phi =0$ is restored if QCD is sufficiently strong.