University At Buffalo

Q.F.T Term Paper

Theoretical Constraints on
Higgs mass
By: Jimin George
 1 Higgs Boson
Higgs boson is a massive scalar elementary particle predicted by the Stan-
dard Model. At present there is no known elementary scalar bosons (spin-0
particles) in nature, we only have composite spin-0 particles. The Higgs bo-
son is the only standard model particle that has not been observed. Higgs
boson is a consequence of the so called Higgs mechanism in the Standard
model. The interaction of Higgs field makes elementary particles including
Higgs boson massive in the Standard model. The scalar field lagrangian in
the Standard model is given by:

LS = |Dµ |2 − V (φ), V (φ) = µ2 φ† φ + λ(φ† φ)2 (1)

We now expand φ around Standard model vacuum,

 
1 0
φ= √ (2)
2 v+H

Where v is the vacuum expectation value of the standard model scalar field
and the numerical value is about 246Gev. If we substitute φ expanded around
vacuum expectation value in to the scalar field lagrangian, the covariant
derivative gives the kinetic term and the scalar potential gives the mass and
self interaction terms for the Higgs field. Using the relation,v2 = −µ2 /λ one
can get the lagrangian containing the Higgs field H is given by,

1 λ
LH = (∂ µ H)2 − λv2 H 2 − λvH 3 − H 4 (3)
2 4
From this Lagrangian,one can see that Higgs boson mass is given by,

MH2 = 2λv2 = −2µ2 (4)

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So if we can figure out the mass of Higgs boson one can fix the values of
two free parameters,µ and λ in the scalar potential.There are no remaining
adjustable parameters in the standard model and so Higgs production and
decay process can be computed unambiguously in terms of the Higgs mass
alone.

2 Theoretical Constraints on the Higgs boson

mass
One can calculate lower and upper mass bounds for mass of Higgs boson us-
ing theoretical arguments in the energy range where the Standard model is
valid. These include bounds from unitarity in scattering amplitudes,stability
of the electroweak vacuum and triviality.These are discussed in detail below.

2.1 Constraints from Unitarity in scattering Ampli-

tudes
Unitarity simply means that sum of probabilities of all possible outcomes of
any event is always one. In the case of scattering which have cross sections
rising with s (Mandelstam variable) will eventually violate unitarity. Let us
consider a unitarity problem in standard model at much higher energies than
the Fermi scale. The longitudinal components of the W and Z bosons give
rise to interesting features at higher energies. The Longitudinal polarization
of these gauge bosons are proportional to it’s momentum. So at higher en-
ergies the longitudinal amplitude will dominate in the scattering. There is
a theorem called the Electroweak equivalence theorem, which states that at
very high energies, the longitudinal massive vector bosons can be replaced
by the Goldstone bosons[1]. In addition to this, in many processes such as

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vector boson scattering, the vector bosons themselves can be replaced by
their longitudinal components. The amplitude for the scattering of n gauge
bosons in the initial state into n’ gauge bosons in the final state is simply
the amplitude of scattering of corresponding Goldstone bosons. Thus at high
energies, one can simply replace W ± and Z bosons in the Standard model
scalar potential by their corresponding Goldstone bosons w± and w0 , giving
rise to

MH2 M2
V = (H 2 + w02 + 2w+ w− )H + H2 (H 2 + w02 + 2w+ w− )2 (5)
2v 8v

and this potential could be used to calculate the amplitudes for the processes
involving vector bosons. This makes calculations easy, because we only have
scalar particles.
Let us consider the example of W + W − → W + W − at higher energies.
Some contributing Feynman diagrams for this process are displayed in Fig.1.

Figure 1: Some Feynman diagrams for high energy W scattering [1]

One can now use the potential of Eq.(5) to find scattering amplitudes for all
three cases.
In the first case, we only have a vertex in the Feynman diagram. The scat-
tering amplitude is given by,

MH2 22 2MH2
A1 = ×4 = (6)
8v2 v2
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Second case is a s channel exchange of Higgs boson, we have two vertex and
a Higgs propagator. The scattering amplitude is given by,

2
2MH2 2MH2 MH2

1 1
A2 = × × = × (7)
2v s − MH2 2v v s − MH2

Third case is a t channel exchange of Higgs boson, we have two vertex and
a Higgs propagator. The scattering amplitude is given by,

2
2MH2 2MH2 MH2

1 1
A3 = × × = × (8)
2v t − MH2 2v v t − MH2

The total amplitude is the sum of all three amplitudes given by:

2 2
2M 2 MH2 MH2
 
1 1
A = 2H + × + × (9)
v v s − MH2 v t − MH2

This amplitude will lead to cross sections which violates unitarity [2]. To see
this we consider 2→2 elastic scattering. The differential cross section is,

dσ 1
= |A|2 (10)
dΩ 64π 2 s

The amplitude can be written using partial wave decomposition as,

∞
X
A = 16π (2l + 1)Pl (cos θ)al (11)
l=0

Where al is the spin l partial wave and Pl (cos θ) are legendre polynomials.

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The cross section can be calculated using eqn.(10) as,

∞ Z 1
8π X 0 0
σ= (2l + 1)(2l + 1)al al d cos θPl (cos θ)Pl0 (cos θ)
s l0 =0 −1

∞
16π X
= (2l + 1)|al |2 (12)
s l=0

The optical theorem which tells us that the cross section is proportional to
the imaginary part of the amplitude in the forward direction. Which gives
the relation,

∞
1 16π X
σ = Im [A(θ = 0)] = (2l + 1)|al |2 (13)
s s l=0

⇒ |al |2 = Im(al ) (14)

1 1
⇒ [Re(al )]2 + [Im(al ) − ]2 = (15)
2 4

This is equation of a circle of radius 21 . This leads to the unitarity condition,

1
|Re(al )| < (16)
2

Let us calculate the J=0 partial wave for the amplitude A,

Z 0
1
a0 = |A|dt
16πs s

MH2 MH2 MH2

  
s
=− 2+ − log 1 + 2 (17)
16πv2 s − MH2 s MH

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At very high energies s>> MH2 , which leads to

MH2
a0 → − (18)
8πv2

From the unitarity condition eqn.(16), we obtain the upper bound for Higgs
mass

MH < 870Gev (19)

By also considering the coupled channels we will get the upper bound to be
around 710Gev [1]. But this upper bound doesn’t mean that Higgs mass
cannot be more than 710Gev, it only means that the perturbation theory
doesn’t work above this limit.If the Higgs mass is more than this limit, uni-
tarity will be violated unless there emerges some new Physics which restores
the unitarity. Which means Higgs boson plays an important role in cutting
off the growth of the partial wave amplitude and makes the theory pertur-
bative.
We can apply an alternative limit to the Eqn.(17), s << MH2 , Higgs mass is
much heavier than the energy scale. In this limit we get,

s
a0 → − (20)
32πv2

Again by applying the Unitarity condition Eqn.(16)we get,

√
s < 1.7T eV (21)

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Again by considering all coupled channels we get the upper bound to be 1.2
TeV [1]. So if the higgs boson is too heavy or if it dosen’t exist, some new
Physics beyond the Standaed model, which plays the role of Higgs boson
should show up below the 1.2 TeV to restore unitarity.

2.2 Constraints from Triviality

We have the Standard model scalar potential given by,

V (φ) = µ2 φ† φ + λ(φ† φ)2 (22)

Where the quadratic coupling is given by,

MH2
λ = (23)
2v2
This is the scalar sector of the Standard model with no fermions or Gauge
bosons.The quadratic coupling λ changes with the effective energy scale Q
due to the self interaction of the scalar field. The variation of the coupling
is described by the Renormalization Group Equation [2],

dλ(Q) 3λ2 (Q)

= + Higher order terms (24)
d log(Q2 /Q20 ) 4π 2
(25)

The solution of this equation choosing the electroweak vacuum expectation

value ,v to be the reference energy scale, Q0 for one loop self interaction is
given by,

Q2
 
1 1 3
= − 2 log
λ(Q) λ(v) 4π v2

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 λ(v)
λ(Q) =   (26)
3λ(v) Q2
1− 4π 2
log v2

The quadratic coupling vary logarithmically with the squared energy Q2 . If

the energy scale is much below the electroweak breaking scale, Q2 << v2 ,
the quadratic coupling becomes extremely small and goes to zero. Now this
is termed as trivial theory. Much below electroweak breaking scale the cou-
pling constant is zero and theory is non interacting. But in the opposite
limit, when the energy is much higher than the electroweak scale, Q2 >> v2 ,
the quadratic coupling grows and eventually becomes infinite. The coupling
becomes infinite at so called Landau pole at the energy Λ,

4π 2 8π 2 v2
   
2 2 2
Λ = v exp = v exp (27)
3λ 3MH2

To obtain a bound on Higgs mass we require that the quadratic coupling is

finite. Λ is some large scale energy where new Physics comes in to picture.
So we get an equation for the upper bound of Higgs mass as,

8π 2 v2
MH2 < (28)
3 log(Λ2 /v2 )

The upper bound for Higgs mass depends on the energy scale corresponding
to the Landau pole. As the critical energy scales goes up the upper bound
for Higgs mass comes down. For instance if we choose Λ ∼ 1016 GeV , then
we get,

MH < 160GeV (29)

If the cut-off is set at the Higgs boson mass itself, Λ = MH , we get the
Upper bound for Higgs mass as,

MH < 700GeV (30)

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2.3 Constraints from Vacuum Stability
A bound on Higgs mass can be also derived by the requirement that spon-
taneous symmetry breaking actually occurs [2]. The requirement is that the
scalar potential,

V (Q) > V (v) (31)

In the last section, only the contribution from the self coupling of Higgs has
been included to find the variation of the quadratic coupling with the energy
scale. This works for large values of quadratic coupling. But for smaller
regions of quadratic coupling, we also need to include contributions from
fermions and gauge bosons. Since the Higgs boson coupling is proportional
to the particle mass, we only need to include contributions from top quark
and massive gauge bosons. The one loop Renormalization group equation for
smaller values of quadratic coupling after including the fermion and gauge
boson contributions becomes[1],

12Mt4 Q2
 
1 3 4 2 2 2


λ(Q) = λ(v) + − + 2g2 + (g2 + g 1 ) log (32)
16π 2 v4 16 v2

Where g1 , g2 are coupling constants of U (1)Y , SU (2)L respectively and Mt

is the mass of the top quark.
If the quadratic coupling is small and the top quark contribution is dominant,
then we might end up getting negative values of quadratic coupling. This
leads to the condition V (Q) < V (v) . The vacuum will no longer be stable,
because it doesn’t have a minimum. So to have a stable vacuum, quadratic
coupling shold be positive [1]. This gives a constraint on Higgs mass from
Eqn.(36) as,

v2 12Mt4 Q2
 
3
MH2 4 2 2 2


> 2 − 4 + 2g2 + (g2 + g1 ) log 2 (33)
8π v 16 v

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Again the lower bound for Higgs mass depends on the Value of the cut-off
energy Λ. If we assume that standard model is valid till 1016 GeV then the
lower bound for Higgs mass is given by,

MH > 130 GeV (34)

The Triviality and the vacuum stability bound on the Higgs boson mass as
functions of the cut-off scale is as shown in Fig.2

Figure 2: Triviality and stability bound on Higgs mass[1]

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3 Experimental Searches
LEP has put a lower limit on Higgs mass as,

MH > 114.4 GeV (35)

Also Tevatron excluded the Higgs mass between 158GeV and 175 GeV [3].
The conclusion for experimental searches are shown in the Fig.3,

Figure 3: Experimental exclusions of Higgs mass[3]

4 conclusion
Theoretical constraints on Higgs mass has been studied on the basis of Uni-
tarity of scattering amplitudes,triviality and Stability of standard model vac-
uum. Unitarity conditions give an upper bound for Higgs mass as 710Gev.
The mass bounds from triviality and stability depends on the cut-off energy.
Cut-off energy of 1016 GeV gives upper bound as 200GeV and lower bound
as 130GeV.

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References
[1] A. Djouadi, The Anatomy of ElectroWeak Symmetry Breaking, I: The
Higgs boson in the Standard Model, Phys.Rep 2008.

[2] S. Dawson, Introduction to Electroweak Symmetry Breaking, Lectures

given at ICTP Summer School in High-Energy Physics and Cosmology,
Trieste (Italy), 29 Jun17 Jul 1998. hep-ph/9901280.

[3] Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

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