Dear Colleagues, Chip and I received numerous technical comments on the long and short EF reports, and we are happy to get more. Sally Dawson sent a long list, but only to the Higgs group. I append her message below. In the meeting I would like to discuss the first of her comments, which is a general issue about the introductory section. Please read this and think about it before the meeting: Lines 68 and 69 and Section 1.2.2 ….” call for new particles and forces at the TeV scale…” This all assumes a definition of naturalness. Nowhere in the text do you mention arguments (say Nima’s talk at Snowmass) against naturalness. The split SUSY people would say that all of the new physics is at a much higher scale than a few TeV. I am worried that you are overselling the case for TeV particles. I would like to say that the omission of arguments against naturalness is not an oversight; it is deliberate. Naturalness might not be correct, and it is certainly not precise, but there is no sharp argument against it nor any predictive alternative. I do believe that the case for new physics at the LHC has to be made on the basis of naturalness. If you, the Snowmass EF conveners, are not comfortable with this attitude, we can change the language. However, this is a fundamental point, and we need to talk about it. Thanks, Michael ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael E. Peskin [log in to unmask] HEP Theory Group, MS 81 ------- SLAC National Accelerator Lab. phone: 1-(650)-926-3250 2575 Sand Hill Road fax: 1-(650)-926-2525 Menlo Park, CA 94025 USA www.slac.stanford.edu/~mpeskin/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ________________________________________ From: Sally Dawson [[log in to unmask]] Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 2013 1:47 PM To: Peskin, Michael E.; Raymond Brock; Chris Tully; Andrei Gritsan; Jianming Qian; Heather Logan Subject: Fwd: My comments Here are my somewhat picky comments. Sally ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sally Dawson <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> Date: Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 11:06 AM Subject: My comments To: Andrei Gritsan <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>, Chris Tully <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>, Jianming Qian <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>, "[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>, Heather Logan <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> Lines 68 and 69 and Section 1.2.2 ….” call for new particles and forces at the TeV scale…” This all assumes a definition of naturalness. Nowhere in the text do you mention arguments (say Nima’s talk at Snowmass) against naturalness. The split SUSY people would say that all of the new physics is at a much higher scale than a few TeV. I am worried that you are overselling the case for TeV particles. Lines 137 and 138 say that there must be a top partner at the TeV mass scale…. I would be much more comfortable saying “there is likely to be….” Line 85 “particles at forces” should presumably be “particles and forces” Eq. 1.1 and 1.2 In Eq. 1.1 you use uppercase G, the rest of the document has lower case g. To get the sqrt(2) in eq. 1.2, you need Phi -> (v+h)/sqrt(2) in line 101 Eq. 1.8 uses uppercase H, the remainder of the text uses lc. h Line 280, There is a subtlety as to whether kappa_g etc include changes to the top coupling or just new particles which you might want to explain Line 286 Chiral fermions don’t decouple, so this statement isn’t true in an interesting way. Line 289 Kappa_V in the decoupling MSSM goes like 1/M**4 Line 304 m_c really doesn’t matter for Higgs physics. Line 314 The LHC does measure the Higgs invisible width from Zh production—it’s just not very precise. Line 320/321 Where did you get the 12% from? It’s not what the Higgs cross section working group has. Many of the Higgs coupling measurements come from VBF, which has a very small uncertainty. Maybe you could add “significantly smaller for other….” Around lines 330, missing a description of Fig. 1.4 Lines 340-342 This is a model dependent statement. The LHC probes the Higgs couplings of composite models and some singlet mixing models quite well. Line 1009 Is a 50% measurement really a measurement? Line 1010, 1097 Not sure what “deep” means Lines 1028 “great statistical and systematic sensitivity to BSM theories” What do you mean here? Do you mean Higgs couplings? Precision measurements? Line 1046 and 1061 “Model independent”….. Doesn’t this assume MSSM-like couplings to the Z? What if I constructed a model where the new Higgs had a very small coupling to the Z? ######################################################################## Use REPLY-ALL to reply to list To unsubscribe from the SNOWMASS-EF list, click the following link: https://listserv.slac.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=SNOWMASS-EF&A=1