Simple Cosmological Solution to the Higgs Instability Problem in the Chaotic Inflation and Formation of Primordial Black Holes

TL;DR

This paper proposes a simple cosmological solution that stabilizes the electroweak vacuum during chaotic inflation, preventing decay, and naturally leads to primordial black hole formation, which could account for dark matter and support thermal leptogenesis.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism to stabilize the electroweak vacuum throughout inflation and preheating, ensuring compatibility with chaotic inflation and dark matter formation.

Findings

Vacuum stability is maintained during all inflation stages.

Primordial black holes can form naturally in the proposed scenario.

Dark matter density can be explained by black holes formed during inflation.

Abstract

We revisit the compatibility between the chaotic inflation, which provides a natural solution to the initial condition problem, and the metastable electroweak vacuum, which is suggested by the results of LHC and the current mass measurements of top quark and Higgs boson. It is known that the chaotic inflation poses a threat to the stability of the electroweak vacuum because it easily generates large Higgs fluctuations during inflation or preheating and triggers the catastrophic vacuum decay. In this paper, we propose a simple cosmological solution in which the vacuum is stabilized during chaotic inflation, preheating and after that. This simple solution naturally predicts the formation of primordial black holes. We find interesting parameter regions where the present dark matter density is provided by them. Also, the thermal leptogenesis can be accommodated in our scenario.