Inelastic channels in the electroweak symmetry-breaking sector

It has been argued that if light Higgs bosons do not exist then the self-interactions of W's become strong in the TeV region and can be observed in longitudinal WW scattering. We present a model with many inelastic channels in the WW scattering process, corresponding to the creation of heavy fermion pairs. The presence of these heavy fermions affects the elastic scattering of W's by propagating in loops, greatly reducing the amplitudes in some charge channels. Consequently, the symmetry-breaking sector cannot be fully explored by using, for example, the W+W+ mode alone; all WW→WW scattering modes must be measured. © 1992.