Electroweak Vacuum Collapse induced by Vacuum Fluctuations of the Higgs Field around Evaporating Black Holes

TL;DR

This paper investigates how vacuum fluctuations of the Higgs field around evaporating black holes can induce a gravitational collapse of the electroweak vacuum, with implications for the stability of the universe and bounds on primordial black holes.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach to study false vacuum decay near black holes and assesses the impact of vacuum fluctuations and Hawking radiation backreaction on vacuum stability.

Findings

Vacuum fluctuations can trigger gravitational collapse of the Higgs vacuum.

Backreaction of Hawking radiation suppresses vacuum decay exponentially.

Large primordial black hole populations threaten universe stability, setting new bounds.

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the Higgs vacuum stability around evaporating black holes. We provide a new approach to investigate the false vacuum decay around the black hole and clearly show how vacuum fluctuations of the Higgs induce a gravitational collapse of the vacuum. Furthermore, we point out that the backreaction of the Hawking radiation can not be ignored and the gravitational vacuum decay is exponentially suppressed. However, a large number of the evaporating (or evaporated) primordial black holes threaten the existence of the Universe and we obtain a new upper bound on the evaporating PBH abundance from the vacuum stability. Finally, we show that the high-order corrections of the BSM or QG would not destabilize the Higgs potential, otherwise even a single evaporating black hole triggers a collapse of the electroweak vacuum.