Hearing Higgs with Gravitational Wave Detectors

TL;DR

This paper predicts that future space-based gravitational wave detectors could observe primordial gravitational waves generated during Higgs inflation, especially with the amplification present in critical Higgs inflation models.

Contribution

It computes the relic gravitational wave background from Higgs inflation considering both Standard Model and extended physics, highlighting the detectability with upcoming interferometers.

Findings

Critical Higgs inflation amplifies tensor fluctuations.

Future detectors like DECIGO, BBO, and ALIA may detect these primordial waves.

The study bridges Higgs inflation theory with observational prospects.

Abstract

The relic gravitational wave background due to tensor linear perturbations generated during Higgs inflation is computed. Both the Standard Model and a well-motivated phenomenological completion (that accounts for all the experimentally confirmed evidence of new physics) are considered. We focus on critical Higgs inflation, which improves on the non-critical version and features an amplification of the tensor fluctuations. The latter property allows us to establish that future space-borne interferometers, such as DECIGO, BBO and ALIA, may detect the corresponding primordial gravitational waves.