Cosmological implications of Higgs field fluctuations during inflation

TL;DR

This paper explores how Higgs field fluctuations during inflation influence the universe's stability, emphasizing the importance of the Higgs potential's behavior at high energies within the Standard Model and inflationary scenarios.

Contribution

It analyzes the impact of Higgs field fluctuations during inflation on cosmological stability, considering both minimal coupling and interaction with the inflaton.

Findings

Higgs potential develops an instability at energies above 10^{14} GeV

A new maximum in the potential influences universe stability

Interaction with inflaton modifies Higgs fluctuation effects

Abstract

Cosmological implications of Higgs field fluctuations during inflation are considered. This study is based on the Standard Model and the standard quadratic model of chaotic inflation where the Higgs field is minimally coupled to gravity and has no direct coupling to the inflaton. In the Standard model the renormalisation group improved effective potential develops an instability (an additional minimum and maximum) at large field values. It is shown that such a new maximum should take place at an energy scale above $10^{14} \;\text{GeV},$ otherwise a universe like ours is extremely unlikely. The extension to the case of the Higgs field interacting with the inflaton field is discussed.