Work

The Art of Counting: a reappraisal of the HEFT expansion

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: A bstract We revisit the power counting of the Higgs Effective Field Theory (HEFT) from first principles, by requiring that predictions for physical observables follow a series expansion in small, dimensionless quantities. Depending on whether HEFT is formulated in terms of a unique low-energy scale v or in terms of two scales v < f , this approach identifies two viable power counting rules that can accommodate any operator normalization choice. We provide quantitative prescriptions for the consistent truncation of HEFT operators, amplitudes and observable contributions and we illustrate our arguments with a number of examples.

Source: Journal of High Energy Physics

DOI: 10.1007/jhep04(2026)202

Authors: Ilaria Brivio, Ramona Gröber, Konstantin Schmid

Institutions: Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Bologna, University of Bologna, University of Padua, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Padova

Language: English

Topic: Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies

Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: diamond

Funders: CERN, Dipartimenti di Eccellenza, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung, Università degli Studi di Padova

Awards: G1303340219, Identifying new physics footprints: Effective Field Theories for the Large Hadron Collider