Electroweak symmetry breaking in the DSSM

We study the theoretical and phenomenological consequences of modifying the Kähler potential of the MSSM two Higgs doublet sector. Such modifications naturally arise when the Higgs sector mixes with a quasi-hidden conformal sector, as in some F-theory GUT models. In the Delta-deformed Supersymmetric Standard Model (DSSM), the Higgs fields are operators with non-trivial scaling dimension 1 < Δ < 2. The Kähler metric is singular at the origin of field space due to the presence of quasi-hidden sector states which get their mass from the Higgs vevs. The presence of these extra states leads to the fact that even as Δ → 1, the DSSM does not reduce to the MSSM. In particular, the Higgs can naturally be heavier than the W - and Z-bosons. Perturbative gauge coupling unification, a large top quark Yukawa, and consistency with precision electroweak can all be maintained for Δ close to unity. Moreover, such values of Δ can naturally be obtained in string-motivated constructions. The quasi-hidden sector generically contains states charged under SU(5)GUT as well as gauge singlets, leading to a rich, albeit model-dependent, collider phenomenology.