Smoking-gun signatures of little Higgs models

Abstract

Little Higgs models predict new gauge bosons, fermions and scalars at the TeV scale that stabilize the Higgs mass against quadratically divergent one-loop radiative corrections. We categorize the many little Higgs models into two classes based on the structure of the extended electroweak gauge group and examine the experimental signatures that identify the little Higgs mechanism in addition to those that identify the particular little Higgs model. We find that by examining the properties of the new heavy fermion(s) at the LHC, one can distinguish the structure of the top quark mass generation mechanism and test the little Higgs mechanism in the top sector. Similarly, by studying the couplings of the new gauge bosons to the light Higgs boson and to the Standard Model fermions, one can confirm the little Higgs mechanism and determine the structure of the extended electroweak gauge group.