Strongly Interacting W's and Z's and the Existence of a Heavy Fourth Generation of Fermions

Abstract

By employing the dictum that axiomatic principles are devoid of predictive power, we find that the elastic unitarity constraint, applied to strong W$_L$W$_L$ scattering, does not alter the assumed spectrum of intermediate states. We consider intermediate states involving a heavy Higgs and heavy fermions of a hypothetical fourth generation doublet. In contrast to recent studies, we find no p-wave resonance, and therefore no violation of the S parameter upper bound. We conclude that the elastic unitarity constraint sheds no light on the existence of a heavy fourth generation.