An Inflationary Probe of Cosmic Higgs Switching

Abstract

A scalar Higgs field can be repeatedly switched on and off when it couples to a classically oscillating scalar modulus field. The modulus flips the Higgs mass term between stable and tachyonic values. We study a cosmological scenario in which such repeated phase transitions occur during inflation. An irrelevant operator coupling the Higgs field to the inflaton can then imprint the pattern of phase transitions in the correlation functions of the inflaton. Using both numerical and analytic studies, we show that the inflaton 2-point function carries characteristic imprints of the modulus oscillation and its effect on the Higgs boson. We briefly remark on the potential observability of such patterns and how they might be distinguished from other dynamics in the early universe.

arXiv comment28 pages, 9 figures. v2: improved analytic approximation and other minor changes; published in JHEP

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• The Gravitational-Wave Physics II: Progress
• Reheating and Dark Matter Freeze-in in the Higgs-$R^2$ Inflation Model
• Perturbative Reheating in the Mixed Higgs-$R^2$ Model
• The Higgs field and early universe cosmology: a (brief) review
• Fingerprints of a Non-Inflationary Universe from Massive Fields
• Opening up a window on the postinflationary QCD axion