Skyrmions in Composite Higgs Models
Dr. Marc Gillioz (Universität Zürich)

The low-energy description of a strongly-interacting gauge theory is essentially independent of the nature of the gauge group, but depends rather on the global symmetries of the theory. Based on this observation, a number of phenomenological models have been built in which the Higgs field is a composite bound state of some strong dynamics (the equivalent of the pion field in QCD). Composite Higgs models are merely sensitive to their UV completions through anomalous couplings. However, there is more information contained in the low-energy effective description than just the dynamics of the pseudo-Goldstone bosons: the presence of topological solitons (skyrmions) reveals the existence of stable composite state above the TeV scale, and puts severe bounds on existing models.