Cosmological Perturbations in the New Higgs Inflation

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the cosmological perturbations during the New Higgs Inflation, showing compatibility with observational data and discussing the implications of Higgs coupling to gravity.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the New Higgs Inflation model produces perturbations consistent with observations and respects unitarity bounds.

Findings

Scalar perturbations match WMAP data

Primordial gravitational waves are consistent with observations

Unitarity bounds are not violated in the model

Abstract

We study the cosmological perturbations created during the New Higgs inflationary phase. In the New Higgs Inflation, the Higgs boson is kinetically coupled to the Einstein tensor and only three perturbative degrees of freedom, a scalar and two tensorial (gravitational waves), propagate during Inflation. Scalar perturbations are found to match the latest WMAP-7yrs data within Standard Model Higgs parameters. Primordial gravitational waves also, although propagating with superluminal speed, are consistent with present data. Finally, we estimate the values of the parameter of the New Higgs Inflation in relation to the Higgs mass, the spectral index and amplitude of the primordial scalar perturbations showing that the unitarity bound of the theory is not violated.