Tunneling cosmological state revisited: Origin of inflation with a non-minimally coupled Standard Model Higgs inflaton

TL;DR

This paper develops a path integral approach to tunneling cosmological states, applying it to Higgs-driven inflation with non-minimal coupling, unifying quantum cosmology, particle physics, and CMB data.

Contribution

It introduces a renormalized path integral formulation for quantum cosmology applied to Higgs inflation, linking initial conditions to CMB spectrum generation.

Findings

Probability peak for initial inflaton conditions derived

CMB spectrum consistent with WMAP data within Higgs mass range

Unified framework connecting quantum cosmology, SM, and inflation

Abstract

We suggest a path integral formulation for the tunneling cosmological state, which admits a consistent renormalization and renormalization group (RG) improvement in particle physics applications of quantum cosmology. We apply this formulation to the inflationary cosmology driven by the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson playing the role of an inflaton with a strong non-minimal coupling to gravity. In this way a complete cosmological scenario is obtained, which embraces the formation of initial conditions for the inflationary background in the form of a sharp probability peak in the distribution of the inflaton field and the ongoing generation of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) spectrum on this background. Formation of this probability peak is based on the same RG mechanism which underlies the generation of the CMB spectrum which was recently shown to be compatible with the WMAP data in the Higgs mass range $135.6 {\rm GeV} \lesssim M_H\lesssim 184.5 {\rm GeV}$. This brings to life a convincing unification of quantum cosmology with the particle phenomenology of the SM, inflation theory, and CMB observations.