The cosmological constant and scale hierarchies with emergent gauge symmetries

Motivated by the stability of the electroweak Higgs vacuum we consider the possibility that the Standard Model might work up to large scales between about 10 10  GeV and close to the Planck scale. A plausible scenario is an emergent Standard Model with gauge symmetries originating in some topological-like phase transition deep in the ultraviolet. In this case, the cosmological constant scale and neutrino masses should be of similar size, suppressed by factor of the large scale of emergence. The key physics involves a subtle interplay of Poincaré invariance, mass generation and renormalization group invariance. The Higgs mass would be environmentally selected in connection with vacuum stability. Consequences for dark matter scenarios are discussed.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘The particle-gravity frontier’.