Stability and symmetry breaking in the general n-Higgs-doublet model

Abstract

For potentials with n-Higgs-boson doublets stability, electroweak symmetry breaking, and the stationarity equations are discussed in detail. This is done within the bilinear formalism which simplifies the investigation, in particular since irrelevant gauge degrees of freedom are systematically avoided. For the case that the potential leads to the physically relevant electroweak symmetry breaking the mass matrices of the physical Higgs bosons are given explicitly.

Comments: 12 pages, generalization of the case of 3 doublets in arXiv:1408.6833 to the case of n doublets. Revised version with errors corrected with respect to the stability and stationarity equations for the case of the bilinear's matrix of rank 1