6533b825fe1ef96bd1283278
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Postinflationary vacuum instability and Higgs-inflaton couplings
Oleg LebedevMindaugas KarciauskasKari EnqvistMarco ZattaStanislav Rusaksubject
Particle physicsCosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)High Energy Physics::LatticePhysics beyond the Standard ModeleducationFOS: Physical sciencesAstrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics114 Physical sciences01 natural sciencesUpper and lower boundsInstabilityGeneral Relativity and Quantum CosmologyHigh Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)inflation Higgs0103 physical sciences010306 general physicsPhysicsCoupling010308 nuclear & particles physicsHigh Energy Physics::PhenomenologyElectroweak interactionAstronomy and AstrophysicsInflatonHigh Energy Physics - PhenomenologyHiggs fieldHiggs bosonHigh Energy Physics::ExperimentAstrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysicsdescription
The Higgs-inflaton coupling plays an important role in the Higgs field dynamics in the early Universe. Even a tiny coupling generated at loop level can have a dramatic effect on the fate of the electroweak vacuum. Such Higgs-inflaton interaction is present both at the trilinear and quartic levels in realistic reheating models. In this work, we examine the Higgs dynamics during the preheating epoch, focusing on the effects of the parametric and tachyonic resonances. We use lattice simulations and other numerical tools in our studies. We find that the resonances can induce large fluctuations of the Higgs field which destabilize the electroweak vacuum. Our considerations thus provide an upper bound on quartic and trilinear interactions between the Higgs and the inflaton. We conclude that there exists a favourable range of the couplings within which the Higgs field is stabilized during both inflation and preheating epochs.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-11-11 | Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics |