Dynamics of Electroweak Gauge Fields during and after Higgs Inflation

Abstract

We study the dynamics of $SU(2{)}_L$ times $U(1{)}_Y$ electroweak gauge fields during and after Higgs inflation. In particular, we investigate configurations of the gauge fields during inflation and find the gauge fields remain topologically non-trivial. We also find that the gauge fields grow due to parametric resonances caused by oscillations of a Higgs field after inflation. We show that the Chern-Simons number also grows significantly. Interestingly, the parametric amplification gives rise to sizable magnetic fields after the inflation whose final amplitudes depend on the anisotropy survived during inflation.

16 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (6)

• The Standard Model Higgs boson as the inflaton
• Higgs inflation: consistency and generalisations
• Inflationary Universe with Anisotropic Hair
• Generation of Large-Scale Magnetic Fields in Single-Field Inflation
• Magnetic fields from inflation?
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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Anisotropy in Inflation with Non-minimal Coupling
• Photon propagator for inflation in the general covariant gauge