Standard Model False Vacuum Inflation: Correlating the Tensor-to-Scalar Ratio to the Top Quark and Higgs Boson masses

TL;DR

This paper explores how the Standard Model Higgs potential's false minimum could have driven cosmic inflation, linking the tensor-to-scalar ratio of gravitational waves to precise measurements of the top quark and Higgs boson masses.

Contribution

It proposes a connection between the Higgs potential's false minimum and inflation, predicting observable gravitational wave signatures based on particle mass measurements.

Findings

Higgs mass range consistent with inflation is 126.0 ± 3.5 GeV.

Future experiments could detect the gravitational wave background from this inflation.

Combining cosmological and particle physics data tests the false vacuum inflation hypothesis.

Abstract

For a narrow band of values of the top quark and Higgs boson masses, the Standard Model Higgs potential develops a false minimum at energies of about $10^{16}$ GeV, where primordial Inflation could have started in a cold metastable state. A graceful exit to a radiation-dominated era is provided, e.g., by scalar-tensor gravity models. We pointed out that if Inflation happened in this false minimum, the Higgs boson mass has to be in the range $126.0 \pm 3.5$ GeV, where ATLAS and CMS subsequently reported excesses of events. Here we show that for these values of the Higgs boson mass, the inflationary gravitational wave background has be discovered with a tensor-to-scalar ratio at hand of future experiments. We suggest that combining cosmological observations with measurements of the top quark and Higgs boson masses represents a further test of the hypothesis that the Standard Model false minimum was the source of Inflation in the Universe.