Standard Model Higgs inflation: CMB, Higgs mass and quantum cosmology

TL;DR

This paper explores Higgs inflation within the Standard Model, linking cosmological observations with particle physics, and suggests the Higgs mass range is constrained by CMB data, offering a test for the SM via cosmology.

Contribution

It provides a renormalization group analysis of Higgs inflation, connecting quantum effects with cosmological data, and discusses initial conditions from quantum cosmology.

Findings

Higgs mass range constrained by CMB spectral index

Quantum effects make SM phenomenology sensitive to cosmological data

Naturalness of the inflationary scenario within perturbation theory

Abstract

We consider the inflation model generated by the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson having a strong non-minimal curvature coupling. This model suggests the range of the Higgs mass $135.6\; {\rm GeV} \lesssim M_H\lesssim 184.5\;{\rm GeV}$ entirely determined by the lower WMAP bound on the CMB spectral index. This result is based on the renormalization group analysis of quantum effects which make the SM phenomenology sensitive to the current cosmological data and thus suggest CMB measurements as a SM test complementary to the LHC program. We show naturalness of the gradient and curvature expansion in this model in a conventional perturbation theory range of SM. The origin of initial conditions for inflation within the quantum cosmology concept of the tunneling state of the Universe is also considered. 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 CMB spectrum on this background.