Non-minimal Higgs Inflation and Frame Dependence in Cosmology

TL;DR

This paper explores the quantum frame dependence in non-minimal Higgs inflation models, revealing that quantum corrections induce differences between frames, which has implications for cosmological theories and their interpretations.

Contribution

It provides a geometric explanation for quantum-induced frame dependence in non-minimal Higgs inflation, clarifying the Jordan versus Einstein frame debate.

Findings

Quantum corrections induce frame dependence in the model.

A geometric interpretation explains the origin of this dependence.

The analysis clarifies conceptual issues in cosmological frame choices.

Abstract

We investigate a very general class of cosmological models with scalar fields non-minimally coupled to gravity. A particular representative in this class is given by the non-minimal Higgs inflation model in which the Standard Model Higgs boson and the inflaton are described by one and the same scalar particle. While the predictions of the non-minimal Higgs inflation scenario come numerically remarkably close to the recently discovered mass of the Higgs boson, there remains a conceptual problem in this model that is associated with the choice of the cosmological frame. While the classical theory is independent of this choice, we find by an explicit calculation that already the first quantum corrections induce a frame dependence. We give a geometrical explanation of this frame dependence by embedding it into a more general field theoretical context. From this analysis, some conceptional points in the long lasting cosmological debate: "Jordan frame vs. Einstein frame" become more transparent and in principle can be resolved in a natural way.