Standard Model Higgs Inflation Research Articles

Standard model Higgs inflation supplemented by minimal dark matter

Standard model Higgs inflation supplemented by minimal dark matter

UV (in)sensitivity of Higgs inflation

The predictions of Standard Model Higgs inflation are in excellent agreement with the Planck data, without the need for new fields. However, consistency of the theory requires the presence of (unknown) threshold corrections. These modify the running of the couplings, and thereby change the shape of the inflationary potential. This raises the question how sensitive the CMB parameters are to the UV completion. We show that, due to a precise cancellation, the inflationary predictions are almost unaffected. This implies in general that one cannot relate the spectral index and tensor-to-scalar ratio to the precise top and Higgs mass measurements at the LHC, nor can one probe effects of UV physics on the running.

Quantum corrections in Higgs inflation: the Standard Model case

We compute the one-loop renormalization group equations for Standard Model Higgs inflation. The calculation is done in the Einstein frame, using a covariant formalism for the multi-field system. All counterterms, and thus the betafunctions, can be extracted from the radiative corrections to the two-point functions; the calculation of higher n-point functions then serves as a consistency check of the approach. We find that the theory is renormalizable in the effective field theory sense in the small, mid and large field regime. In the large field regime our results differ slightly from those found in the literature, due to a different treatment of the Goldstone bosons.

Self-healing of unitarity in Higgs inflation

We reconsider perturbative unitarity violation in the standard model Higgs inflation model. We show that the Cutkosky cutting rule implied by perturbative unitarity is fulfilled at one-loop. This is a strong indication that unitarity is restored order by order in perturbation theory. We then resum certain one-loop diagrams and show that the relevant dressed amplitude fulfills the Cutkosky rule exactly. This is an example of the self-healing mechanism. The original Higgs inflation model is thus consistent and does not require any new physics beyond the standard model at least up to the Planck scale.

Observational consequences of the standard model Higgs inflation variants

We consider the possibility to observationally differentiate the Standard Model (SM) Higgs driven inflation with non-minimal coupling to gravity from other variants of SM Higgs inflation based on the scalar field theories with non-canonical kinetic term such as Galileon-like kinetic term and kinetic term with non-minimal derivative coupling to the Einstein tensor.In order to ensure consistent results, we study the SM Higgs inflation variants by using the same method, computing the full dynamics of the background and perturbations of the Higgs field during inflation at quantum level.Assuming that all the SM Higgs inflation variants are consistent theories, we use the MCMC technique to derive constraints on the inflationary parameters and the Higgs boson mass from their fit to WMAP7+SN+BAO data set. We conclude that a combination of the SM Higgs mass measurement by the LHC and accurate determination by the PLANCK satellite of the spectral index of curvature perturbations and tensor-to-scalar ratio will enable to distinguish among these models. We also show that the consistency relations of the SM Higgs inflation variants are distinct enough to differentiate among them.

Holographic bounds and Higgs inflation

In a recently proposed scenario for primordial inflation, where the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson plays a role of the inflation field, an effective field theory (EFT) approach is the most convenient for working out the consequences of breaking of perturbative unitarity, caused by the strong coupling of the Higgs field to the Ricci scalar. The domain of validity of the EFT approach is given by the ultraviolet (UV) cutoff, which, roughly speaking, should always exceed the Hubble parameter in the course of inflation. On the other hand, applying the trusted principles of quantum gravity to a local EFT demands that it should only be used to describe states in a region larger than their corresponding Schwarschild radius, manifesting thus a sort of UV/IR correspondence. We consider both constraints on EFT, to ascertain which models of the SM Higgs inflation are able to simultaneously comply with them. We also show that if the gravitational coupling evolves with the scale factor, the holographic constraint can be alleviated significantly with minimal set of canonical assumptions, by forcing the said coupling to be asymptotically free.

Standard Model Higgs Inflation: CMB, Higgs Mass and Quantum Cosmology

We consider the inflation model generated by the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson having a strong non-minimal curvature coupling. This model suggests the range of the Higgs mass $135.6\; {\rm GeV} \lesssim M_H\lesssim 184.5\;{\rm GeV}$ entirely determined by the lower WMAP bound on the CMB spectral index. This result is based on the renormalization group analysis of quantum effects which make the SM phenomenology sensitive to the current cosmological data and thus suggest CMB measurements as a SM test complementary to the LHC program. We show naturalness of the gradient and curvature expansion in this model in a conventional perturbation theory range of SM. The origin of initial conditions for inflation within the quantum cosmology concept of the tunneling state of the Universe is also considered. In this way a complete cosmological scenario is obtained, which embraces the formation of initial conditions for the inflationary background in the form of a sharp probability peak in the distribution of the inflaton field and the ongoing generation of the CMB spectrum on this background.

Unitarizing Higgs inflation

We consider a simple extension of the Standard Model Higgs inflation with one new real scalar field which preserves unitarity up to the Planck scale. The new scalar field (called sigma) completes in the ultraviolet the theory of Higgs inflation by linearizing the Higgs kinetic term in the Einstein frame, just as the non-linear sigma model is unitarized into its linear version. The unitarity cutoff of the effective theory, obtained by integrating out the sigma field, varies with the background value of the Higgs field. In our setup, both the Higgs field and the sigma field participate in the inflationary dynamics, following the flat direction of the potential. We obtain the same slow-roll parameters and spectral index as in the original Higgs inflation but we find that the Hubble rate during inflation depends not only on the Higgs self-coupling, but also on the unknown couplings of the sigma field.

Standard model Higgs boson mass from inflation: two loop analysis

We extend the analysis of \cite{Bezrukov:2008ej} of the Standard Model Higgs inflation accounting for two-loop radiative corrections to the effective potential. As was expected, higher loop effects result in some modification of the interval for allowed Higgs masses m_min<m_H<m_max, which somewhat exceeds the region in which the Standard Model can be considered as a viable effective field theory all the way up to the Planck scale. The dependence of the index n_s of scalar perturbations on the Higgs mass is computed in two different renormalization procedures, associated with the Einstein (I) and Jordan (II) frames. In the procedure I the predictions of the spectral index of scalar fluctuations and of the tensor-to-scalar ratio practically do not depend on the Higgs mass within the admitted region and are equal to n_s=0.97 and r=0.0034 respectively. In the procedure II the index n_s acquires the visible dependence on the Higgs mass and and goes out of the admitted interval at m_H below m_min. We compare our findings with the results of \cite{DeSimone:2008ei}.