We explore the possibility of modeling electroweak physics in a warped extra dimension with a soft wall. The infrared boundary is replaced with a smoothly varying dilaton field that provides a dynamical spacetime cutoff. We analyze gravity, gauge fields, and fermions in the soft-wall background and obtain a discrete spectrum of Kaluza-Klein states which can exhibit linear Regge-like behavior. Bulk Yukawa interactions give rise to nonconstant fermion mass terms, leading to fermion localization in the soft-wall background and a possible explanation of the standard model flavor structure. Furthermore we construct electroweak models with custodial symmetry, where the gauge symmetry is broken with a bulk Higgs condensate. The electroweak constraints are not as stringent as in hard-wall models, allowing Kaluza-Klein masses of order the TeV scale.

• Received 17 September 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.78.116011