Constraining power of asymptotic safety for scalar fields

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the asymptotic safety paradigm in quantum gravity constrains scalar field models relevant for dark matter, inflation, and the Higgs sector, revealing potential limits on their parameter spaces and implications for cosmology.

Contribution

It demonstrates that asymptotic safety can significantly restrict scalar field theories, influencing models of dark matter, inflation, and the Higgs sector, and delineates the boundaries of the asymptotically safe swampland.

Findings

Quantum fluctuations may drive scalar potentials towards flatness.

Asymptotic safety can exclude large parameter regions in scalar dark matter models.

Hints that Higgs inflation may be incompatible with asymptotic safety.

Abstract

We explore the phenomenology of scalar fields coupled to asymptotically safe quantum gravity, in light of their potential significance for dark matter, for the inflaton as well as dynamical dark energy, and in the Higgs sector in and beyond the Standard Model. This work is a step towards delineating the boundaries of the asymptotically safe swampland by exploiting the constraining power of the asymptotic-safety paradigm. Firstly, we strengthen indications that quantum gravitational fluctuations could drive scalar potentials towards flatness, with intriguing potential implications for inflation and dark energy. Secondly, we explore how asymptotic safety could rule out large parts of the parameter space in models for scalar dark matter. Thirdly, we discover hints that at an asymptotically safe fixed point with finite top quark mass, the non-minimal Higgs-curvature coupling could be constrained. Finally, by combining the constraining power of asymptotic safety in particle physics and cosmology, we find hints that Higgs inflation lies in the asymptotically safe swampland. In summary, we strengthen previous indications for the constraining power of asymptotic safety and the resulting large extent of the asymptotically safe swampland.