Logo
ScienceStack
Table of Contents
Fetching ...
Sign In

Standard Model False Vacuum Inflation: Correlating the Tensor-to-Scalar Ratio to the Top Quark and Higgs Boson masses

Isabella Masina, Alessio Notari

TL;DR

It is suggested that combining cosmological observations with measurements of the top quark and Higgs boson masses represent a further test of the hypothesis that the standard model false minimum was the source of inflation in the universe.

Abstract

For a narrow band of values of the top quark and Higgs boson masses, the Standard Model Higgs potential develops a false minimum at energies of about $10^{16}$ GeV, where primordial Inflation could have started in a cold metastable state. A graceful exit to a radiation-dominated era is provided, e.g., by scalar-tensor gravity models. We pointed out that if Inflation happened in this false minimum, the Higgs boson mass has to be in the range $126.0 \pm 3.5$ GeV, where ATLAS and CMS subsequently reported excesses of events. Here we show that for these values of the Higgs boson mass, the inflationary gravitational wave background has be discovered with a tensor-to-scalar ratio at hand of future experiments. We suggest that combining cosmological observations with measurements of the top quark and Higgs boson masses represents a further test of the hypothesis that the Standard Model false minimum was the source of Inflation in the Universe.

Standard Model False Vacuum Inflation: Correlating the Tensor-to-Scalar Ratio to the Top Quark and Higgs Boson masses

TL;DR

It is suggested that combining cosmological observations with measurements of the top quark and Higgs boson masses represent a further test of the hypothesis that the standard model false minimum was the source of inflation in the universe.

Abstract

For a narrow band of values of the top quark and Higgs boson masses, the Standard Model Higgs potential develops a false minimum at energies of about GeV, where primordial Inflation could have started in a cold metastable state. A graceful exit to a radiation-dominated era is provided, e.g., by scalar-tensor gravity models. We pointed out that if Inflation happened in this false minimum, the Higgs boson mass has to be in the range GeV, where ATLAS and CMS subsequently reported excesses of events. Here we show that for these values of the Higgs boson mass, the inflationary gravitational wave background has be discovered with a tensor-to-scalar ratio at hand of future experiments. We suggest that combining cosmological observations with measurements of the top quark and Higgs boson masses represents a further test of the hypothesis that the Standard Model false minimum was the source of Inflation in the Universe.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 1 section, 4 equations, 2 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Acknowledgements

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: Higgs potential as a function of the Higgs field $\chi$. We fixed $\alpha_3(m_Z)=0.1184$, $m_t=171.8$ GeV and, from top to bottom, $m_H=125.2,125.158,125.157663$ GeV. In order to have a non-negligible tunneling probability $m_H$ should be determined with 15 significative digits, as we checked by numerically evaluating a bounce Coleman solution.
  • Figure 2: The solid line indicates the $m_t-m_H$ values compatible with a shallow Higgs false minimum, taking $\alpha_s(m_z)=0.1184$ (central value of Particle Data Group 2011). The line has a (vertical) uncertainty of $1$ GeV in $m_t$ and a (horizontal) one of $3$ GeV in $m_H$ due to the theoretical uncertainty of the 2-loop RGE. The shaded horizontal bands are the $1\sigma$ and $2 \sigma$ ranges for $m_t=173.2\pm0.9$ GeV, according to the recent global SM electroweak precision fits GFitter. Ticks along the solid line display the associated values of $V(\chi_0)^{1/4}$ in units of GeV and those of $r$. The black strip marks the values of $r$ already excluded Komatsu:2010fb.