Spontaneous and dynamical symmetry breaking in higher-dimensional space-time with boundary terms

Abstract

In this thesis we study physics beyond the standard model focusing on the quantum field theory in higher-dimensional space-time with some boundary terms. The boundary term causes nontrivial consequences about the vacuum structure of the higher-dimensional theory. We take particular note of two independent solutions to the weak and Planck hierarchy problem: ``low scale supersymmetry'' and ``dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking.'' From a viewpoint of the low scale supersymmetry, we study $F$ and $D$ term supersymmetry breaking effects on sparticle spectra from a boundary. While we also investigate a nonperturbative effect caused by a bulk (nonsupersymmetric) gauge dynamics on a fermion bilinear condensation on a boundary, and analyze the dynamical symmetry breaking on the brane. From these analyses we conclude that the field localization in higher-dimensional space-time involves in a nontrivial vacuum structure of the theory, and the resultant low energy four-dimensional effective theory has phenomenologically interesting structure. In a framework of purely four-dimensional theory, we also construct the above nontrivial effect of localization in the extra dimension.