6533b829fe1ef96bd1289988

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Higgs-Inflaton Mixing and Vacuum Stability

Mindaugas KarciauskasOleg LebedevStanislav RusakYohei EmaMarco Zatta

subject

Nuclear and High Energy PhysicsParticle physicsCosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)cosmic inflationPhysics beyond the Standard ModelHigh Energy Physics::LatticeSTANDARD MODELFOS: Physical sciencesAstrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic AstrophysicsLorentz covariance01 natural sciences114 Physical sciencesHiggs inlationGeneral Relativity and Quantum CosmologyHigh Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)Higgs-inflaton couplings0103 physical sciences010306 general physicsquantum field theorykosminen inflaatioInflation (cosmology)Physicsta114010308 nuclear & particles physicsElectroweak interactionHigh Energy Physics::PhenomenologyBOSONInflatonlcsh:QC1-999Standard Model (mathematical formulation)Higgs fieldHigh Energy Physics - PhenomenologyHiggs bosonHigh Energy Physics::Experimentkvanttikenttäteorialcsh:PhysicsAstrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

description

The quartic and trilinear Higgs field couplings to an additional real scalar are renormalizable, gauge and Lorentz invariant. Thus, on general grounds, one expects such couplings between the Higgs and an inflaton in quantum field theory. In particular, the (often omitted) trilinear coupling is motivated by the need for reheating the Universe after inflation, whereby the inflaton decays into the Standard Model (SM) particles. Such a coupling necessarily leads to the Higgs-inflaton mixing, which could stabilize the electroweak vacuum by increasing the Higgs self-coupling. We find that the inflationary constraints on the trilinear coupling are weak such that the Higgs-inflaton mixing up to order one is allowed, making it accessible to colliders. This entails an exciting possibility of a direct inflaton search at the LHC.

https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1711.10554