Electroweak vacuum stability and inflation via non-minimal derivative couplings to gravity

Abstract

We show that the Standard Model vacuum can be stabilized if all particle propagators are non-minimally coupled to gravity. This is due to a Higgs-background dependent redefinition of the Standard Model fields: in terms of canonical variables and in the large Higgs field limit, the quantum fluctuations of the redefined fields are suppressed by the Higgs background. Thus, in this regime, quantum corrections to the tree-level electroweak potential are negligible. Finally, we show that in this framework the Higgs boson can be responsible for inflation. Due to a numerical coincidence that originates from the CMB data, inflation can happen if the Higgs boson mass, the top mass, and the QCD coupling lie in a region of the parameter space approximately equivalent than the one allowing for electroweak vacuum stability in the Standard Model. We find some (small) regions in the Standard Model parameter space in which the new interaction "rescues" the electroweak vacuum, which would not be stable in the Standard Model.

v2: improved discussion on disformal transformations; typo corrected in the relation between the slow-roll parameter and the number of e-foldings; version accepted in PRD

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Cited by in corpus (13)

• Gravitational wave production from the decay of the Standard Model Higgs field after inflation
• Beyond dimensional analysis: Higgs and new Higgs inflations {\it do not} violate unitarity
• Hybrid Higgs Inflation: The Use of Disformal Transformation
• Asymptotic Scale Invariance and its Consequences
• Neutrino masses, vacuum stability and quantum gravity prediction for the mass of the top quark
• Matching and running sensitivity in non-renormalizable inflationary models
• On post-inflation validity of perturbation theory in Horndeski scalar-tensor models
• Running Non-Minimal Inflation with Stabilized Inflaton Potential
• Scalar fields with derivative coupling to curvature in the Palatini and the metric formulation
• Renormalization Group Improved Higgs Inflation with a Running Kinetic Term
• Inflation with the Chern-Simons term in the Palatini formulation
• Fate of false vacuum in non-perturbative regimes: Gravity effects
• Inflation with the Gauss-Bonnet term in the Palatini formulation