# Higgs potential near-criticality from a de Sitter swampland-like condition

## TL;DR

This paper explores a modified de Sitter swampland conjecture applied to the effective potential, suggesting it could explain the metastability of the Higgs potential and the universe's acceleration.

## Contribution

It proposes a broader swampland-like condition on the effective potential, linking it to Higgs metastability and cosmic acceleration.

## Key findings

- Modified condition admits local maxima and false de Sitter vacua.
- Potential explanation for Higgs metastability near the Planck scale.
- Connection between swampland conditions and cosmological observations.

## Abstract

Motivated by the recently proposed de Sitter swampland conjecture, a formally same condition imposed instead on the convex and real exact effective potential is contemplated. Compared to the original conjecture, the modified condition admits a broader class of low-energy effective theories such as those with local maxima and/or false de Sitter vacua with some restrictions, as long as there is an anti-de Sitter vacuum. The observed accelerating expansion of the universe might therefore be attributed to a quintessence or a metastable vacuum. The former solution can be simplified and thus better compatible with phenomenological constraints thanks to the convexity of the effective potential. Among the latter class of solutions is found the enthralling possibility that the modified condition is in fact behind the experimentally favoured metastability of the Higgs potential with an instability scale below or around the Planck scale.