Quantum corrections in Higgs inflation: the Standard Model case

TL;DR

This paper calculates the one-loop renormalization group equations for Standard Model Higgs inflation in the Einstein frame, revealing the theory's renormalizability across different field regimes and highlighting differences from previous literature.

Contribution

It provides a covariant formalism for the multi-field system and clarifies the renormalization structure, including a novel treatment of Goldstone bosons in the large field regime.

Findings

The theory is renormalizable in the effective field theory sense across all regimes.

Differences from previous results are due to a different Goldstone boson treatment.

The approach offers a consistent method for higher n-point function calculations.

Abstract

We compute the one-loop renormalization group equations for Standard Model Higgs inflation. The calculation is done in the Einstein frame, using a covariant formalism for the multi-field system. All counterterms, and thus the betafunctions, can be extracted from the radiative corrections to the two-point functions; the calculation of higher n-point functions then serves as a consistency check of the approach. We find that the theory is renormalizable in the effective field theory sense in the small, mid and large field regime. In the large field regime our results differ slightly from those found in the literature, due to a different treatment of the Goldstone bosons.