Constraints on Inflaton Higgs Field Couplings

Abstract

According to the best-fit parameters of the Standard Model, the Higgs field's potential reaches a maximum at a field value $h\sim 10^{10-11}$ GeV and then turns over to negative values. During reheating after inflation, resonance between the inflaton and the Higgs can cause the Higgs to fluctuate past this maximum and run down the dangerous side of the potential if these fields couple too strongly. In this paper, we place constraints on the inflaton-Higgs couplings such that the probability of the Higgs entering the unstable regime during reheating is small. To do so, the equations of motion are approximately solved semi-analytically, then solved fully numerically. Next the growth in variance is used to determine the parameter space for $\kappa$ and $\alpha$, the coupling coefficients for inflaton-Higgs cubic and quartic interactions, respectively. We find the upper bounds of $\kappa <1.6\times 10^{-5}{m}_{\varphi }\sim 2.2\times 10^8$ GeV and $\alpha <10^{-8}$ to allow the Higgs to remain stable in most Hubble patches during reheating, and we also find the full two parameter joint constraints. We find a corresponding bound on the reheat temperature of $T_{\text{reh}}\lesssim 9.2\times 10^9$ GeV. Additionally, de Sitter temperature fluctuations during inflation put a lower bound on inflaton-Higgs coupling by providing an effective mass for the Higgs, pushing back its hilltop during inflation. These additional constraints provide a lower bound on $\alpha$, while $\kappa$ must also be non-zero for the inflaton to decay efficiently.

arXiv comment12 pages in double column format, 12 figures. V2: Updated towards version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D, including journal title

References in corpus (25)

• Higgs mass and vacuum stability in the Standard Model at NNLO
• Higgs mass implications on the stability of the electroweak vacuum
• On the metastability of the Standard Model vacuum
• The Probable Fate of the Standard Model
• The cosmological Higgstory of the vacuum instability
• Hard Art of the Universe Creation
• Spacetime curvature and Higgs stability after inflation
• Cosmological Aspects of Higgs Vacuum Metastability
• Is a Higgs Vacuum Instability Fatal for High-Scale Inflation?
• Top Quark Mass Calibration for Monte Carlo Event Generators
• The Decay of the Standard Model Higgs after Inflation
• Postinflationary vacuum instability and Higgs-inflaton couplings
• Spacetime Dynamics of a Higgs Vacuum Instability During Inflation
• (Higgs) vacuum decay during inflation
• Higgs vacuum metastability in primordial inflation, preheating, and reheating
• Fate of Electroweak Vacuum during Preheating
• Higgs-inflaton coupling from reheating and the metastable Universe
• Electroweak Vacuum Stabilized by Moduli during/after Inflation
• Electroweak Vacuum Instability and Renormalized Higgs Field Vacuum Fluctuations in the Inflationary Universe
• Electroweak Vacuum Metastability and Low-scale Inflation
• Higgs Vacuum Stability and Modified Chaotic Inflation
• Cosmological stochastic Higgs stabilization
• Eternal Inflation and Reheating in the Presence of the Standard Model Higgs Field
• Statistics of Inflating Regions in Eternal Inflation
• Explanation for why the Early Universe was Stable and Dominated by the Standard Model

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Kaluza-Klein Bubble With Massive Scalar Field