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

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±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 represent a further test of the hypothesis that the standard model false minimum was the source of inflation in the universe.