New Physics Hiding at the Ends

Abstract

Is field space infinite? If not, it either loops back on itself or ends altogether. Periodic boundary conditions are of course familiar, but field space endpoints--which appear in real-world systems--are far less explored. In this paper we argue that boundaries in field space are generic, radiatively stable structures that allow for new physics at very low scales not ruled out by experiment. Such boundaries are delocalized in field space from the vacuum, so they can only be accessed by coherent fields or high multiplicity processes, both of which are weakly constrained observationally. Low multiplicity interactions do not detect the boundary and instead perceive a "mirage cutoff" that is parametrically higher than the true cutoff of the theory. Hence, field space boundaries are deformations of the standard model that are Lorentz invariant, local, unitary at low energies, and experimentally unconstrained. We comment on the possibility of field space boundaries on the long-range force carriers and the Higgs, as well as possible implications for the hierarchy problem.