Inflationary cosmology and the standard model Higgs with a small Hubble induced mass

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a small Hubble-induced mass term for the Higgs field during inflation can prevent vacuum instability issues, favoring high reheating temperatures and potential observational tests via gravitational waves.

Contribution

It introduces the idea that a small, non-large Hubble-induced mass for the Higgs can resolve metastability problems in inflation models, with implications for reheating and gravitational wave observations.

Findings

Small Hubble-induced mass relaxes vacuum stability constraints.

High reheating temperatures are compatible with a small induced mass.

Future gravitational wave observations can test this scenario.

Abstract

We study the dynamics of the standard model Higgs field in the inflationary cosmology. Since metastability of our vacuum is indicated by the current experimental data of the Higgs boson and top quark, inflation models with a large Hubble parameter may have a problem: In such models, the Higgs field rolls down towards the unwanted true vacuum due to the large fluctuation in the inflationary background. However, this problem can be relaxed by supposing an additional mass term for the Higgs field generated during and after inflation. We point out that it does not have to be larger than the Hubble parameter if the number of $e$-folds during inflation is not too large. We demonstrate that a high reheating temperature is favored in such a relatively small mass case and it can be checked by future gravitational wave observations. Such an induced mass can be generated by, {\it e.g.,} a direct coupling to the inflaton field or nonminimal coupling to gravity.