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Questions tagged [fine-tuning]

"Fine-tuning" is a situation in which the fundamental parameters in a theory must be "fine-tuned", i.e. precisely chosen, in order for a theory's predictions to agree with experimental data.

"Fine-tuning" is a situation in which the fundamental parameters in a theory must be "fine-tuned", i.e. precisely chosen, in order for a theory's predictions to agree with experimental data. Although fine-tuning has played a role in physics for decades, it remains a contentious issue. Fine-tuning is closely related to the idea of naturalness in high-energy physics and the hierarchy problem.

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In dimensional analysis, why the dimensionless constant is usually of order 1?

Usually in all discussions and arguments of scaling or solving problems using dimensional analysis, the dimensionless constant is indeterminate but it is usually assumed that it is of order 1. What does "of order 1" mean? 0.1-10? Is there any way,…
Revo
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Can dimensional regularization solve the fine-tuning problem?

I have recently read that the dimensional regularization scheme is "special" because power law divergences are absent. It was argued that power law divergences were unphysical and that there was no fine-tuning problem. I was immediately…
innisfree
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What is the justification for Dirac's large numbers hypothesis?

Dirac stated that "Any two of the very large dimensionless numbers occuring in Nature are connected by a simple mathematical relation, in which the coefficients are of the order of magnitude unity." For this particular…
AWanderingMind
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What really enforces technical naturalness of electron mass?

Technical or 't Hooft naturalness A parameter $\theta$ in the Lagrangian of a field theory is said to be natural, if in the limit of vanishing $\theta$, the theory has some enhanced symmetry. If this happens, the smallness of the parameter $\theta$…
SRS
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Why is imposing a symmetry on a theory considered more "natural" than fine-tuning its couplings?

Theories whose behavior would qualitatively change if their couplings were not fine-tuned to particular values are often dismissed as "unnatural" (in high-energy physics) or "unrealistic" (in condensed-matter physics), while theories whose couplings…
tparker
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Why is the relative weakness of gravity a problem?

In my physics classes, I remember it being repeated a few times that gravity is a much weaker force than the other three fundamental forces, and being told this is an open problem in physics. However, I don't understand why this is a problem. I see…
DPenner1
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Renormalization and the Hierarchy Problem

The hierarchy problem is roughly: A scalar particle such as the Higgs receives quadratically divergent corrections, that have to cancel out delicately with the bare mass to give the observed Higgs mass. I have a couple of related questions about…
jdm
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Why is technical naturalness enough?

There are two notions of "naturalness" used in particle physics today. Dirac naturalness: all dimensionless parameters $g$ in a theory should be order $1$. Technical naturalness: an observed coupling constant $g_{\text{eff}}$ can be much smaller…
knzhou
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What motivates clockwork theory?

Clockwork is a new model-building gadget that produces very small couplings starting from a theory with no small numbers at all, in an attempt to solve the hierarchy problem. To describe it as simply as possible: consider $N$ real scalar fields…
knzhou
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Technical naturalness of Yukawa couplings

Naturalness in the sense of 't Hooft tell us that a small parameter is a signal of a symmetry such that the parameter will be zero when the symmetry is exact. I am puzzled about how this principle is applied now that the Yukawa of the top is…
user135
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On the naturalness problem

I know that there are several questions about the naturalness (or hierarchy or fine-tunning) problem of scalars masses in physics.stackexcange.com, but I have not found answers to any of the following questions. Suppose that we add to the SM…
Diego Mazón
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$d=2$ pole argument of quadratic divergences in Peskin & Schroeder's book

Q1: My question is, in the context of dimensional regularisation(DREG, in dimension $d$), why do they mention the absence of $d=2$ pole in the gauge theory cases[1], whereas the $d=2$ pole is not discussed about in $\lambda\phi^4$ theory[2]? For…
LYg
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Scalar field divergent mass correction interpretation question (hierarchy problem)

Simple power counting tells you that a scalar field coupled to some fermions at one-loop picks up a correction to the mass of the order $\Lambda^2$. Based on this people say things like "it's natural to expect that the mass of the scalar is roughly…
user129
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Is naturalness meaningful for non-fundamental theories?

Naturalness has been a guiding philosophy for particle physics for a long time, but a few years ago I heard a talk by Nima Arkani-Hamed where he pointed out that it seems to have failed us as it relates to the Higgs boson mass and the little…
Yly
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What is the hierarchy problem?

BACKGROUND So far I understood that the hierarchy problem was the large difference between the gravitational scale, $M_{pl}\sim 10^{18}\; [GeV]$, compared with the electroweak scale, $M_{ew}\sim 10^3\;[GeV]$. However, I heard that the hierarchy…
Dox
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