The quadratic divergence of the Higgs mass - not a problem?

[JohnMS]

Recently I happened to read two papers that pretend that the quadratic
divergence of the Higgs mass is not a problem.

The first is "From Quantum Hydrodynamics to Quantum Gravity"
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0612134 where Volovik says that the
quadratic divergence of the Higgs mass has the same origin as the
quartic divergence of the vacuum energy. He says, since the vacuum
energy is experimentally zero, the quartic divergence argument is
wrong, as thus also the quadratic argument about the Higgs mass.
Volovik concludes that the quadratic divergence of the Higgs mass can
simply be ignored.

The second is "On Naturalness of Scalar Fields and Standard Model"
http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.0402, published in PRD in July 2008, which
makes a similar claim. It says in its conclusions: "On the other hand,
if some unknown mechanism provides for small mass of scalar particles,
perturbation theory is quite able to explain relative stability of the
scalar mass against small variations in fundamental parameters. We
demonstrated that there is no fine tuning problem in the theory of
quantum scalar field, ... "

Does this mean that the quadratic divergence issue is not as bad as
has been said for the last 30 years? Is there a change in
interpretation happening?

John

[JohnMS]

Correction, the paper by Volovik discussing the quadratic divergence
is: "Vacuum energy: Quantum Hydrodynamics vs Quantum Gravity"
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0505104

John