Electroweak vacuum stability and inflation via nonminimal derivative couplings to gravity

We show that the standard model vacuum can be stabilized if all particle propagators are nonminimally coupled to gravity. This is due to a Higgs-background dependent redefinition of the standard model fields: in terms of canonical variables and in the large Higgs field limit, the quantum fluctuation...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Vita, Stefano Di, Germani, Cristiano
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Recursos:Universidad de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/128248
Acesso em linha:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/128248
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Cosmologia
Gravetat
Cosmology
Gravity
Descrição
Resumo:We show that the standard model vacuum can be stabilized if all particle propagators are nonminimally coupled to gravity. This is due to a Higgs-background dependent redefinition of the standard model fields: in terms of canonical variables and in the large Higgs field limit, the quantum fluctuations of the redefined fields are suppressed by the Higgs background. Thus, in this regime, quantum corrections to the tree-level electroweak potential are negligible. Finally, we show that in this framework the Higgs boson can be responsible for inflation. Due to a numerical coincidence that originates from the CMB data, inflation can happen if the Higgs boson mass, the top mass, and the QCD coupling lie in a region of the parameter space approximately equivalent than the one allowing for electroweak vacuum stability in the standard Model. We find some (small) regions in the standard model parameter space in which the new interaction "rescues" the electroweak vacuum, which would not be stable in the standard model.