Standard Model Meets Gravity: Electroweak Symmetry Breaking and Inflation
Mikhail Shaposhnikov, Andrey Shkerin, Sebastian Zell
备注：
11 pages, 2 figures; v2: mistake in eq. (23) corrected, appendices added, other minor improvements; v3: expanded discussion on validity of semiclassical approximation, matches published version
We propose a model for combining the Standard Model (SM) with gravity. It relies on a non-minimal coupling of the Higgs field to the Ricci scalar and on the Palatini formulation of gravity. Without introducing any new degrees of freedom in addition to those of the SM and the graviton, this scenario achieves two goals. First, it generates the electroweak symmetry breaking by a non-perturbative gravitational effect. In this way, it does not only address the hierarchy problem but opens up the possibility to calculate the Higgs mass. Second, the model incorporates inflation at energies below the onset of strong-coupling of the theory. Provided that corrections due to new physics above the scale of inflation are not unnaturally large, we can relate inflationary parameters to data from collider experiments.
We consider the most minimal scale invariant extension of the standard model that allows for successful radiative electroweak symmetry breaking and inflation. The framework involves an extra scalar singlet, that plays the rôle of the inflaton, and is compatibile with current experimental bounds owing to the non-minimal coupling of the latter to gravity. This inflationary scenario predicts a very low tensor-to-scalar ratio $r \approx 10^{-3}$, typical of Higgs-inflation models, but in contrast yields a scalar spectral index $n_s \simeq 0.97$ which departs from the Starobinsky limit. We briefly …
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 d…
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 originate…
Our current measurements of the Standard Model parameters imply that the Higgs field resides in a metastable electroweak vacuum, where the vacuum can decay to a lower ground state, with cataclysmic repercussions for our Universe. According to our observations, no such event has happened in the observable universe, in spite of the various energetic processes that could have triggered it. This work serves as an overview of a method that uses the metastability of the false vacuum during cosmological inflation to provide constraints on the Higgs curvature coupling $ξ$. Considering also the effects…
We point out that the successful generation of the electroweak scale via gravitational instanton configurations in certain scalar-tensor theories can be viewed as the aftermath of a simple requirement: the existence of a quadratic pole with a sufficiently small residue in the Einstein-frame kinetic term for the Higgs field. In some cases, the inflationary dynamics may also be controlled by this residue and therefore related to the Fermi-to-Planck mass ratio, up to possible uncertainties associated with the instanton regularization. We present here a unified framework for this hierarchy generat…
In this work, we investigated the electroweak vacuum instability during or after inflation. In the inflationary Universe, i.e., de Sitter space, the vacuum field fluctuations $\left< {δϕ}^{ 2 } \right>$ enlarge in proportion to the Hubble scale $H^{2}$. Therefore, the large inflationary vacuum fluctuations of the Higgs field $\left< {δϕ}^{ 2 } \right>$ are potentially catastrophic to trigger the vacuum transition to the negative-energy Planck-scale vacuum state and cause an immediate collapse of the Universe. However, the vacuum field fluctuations $\left< {δϕ}^{ 2 } \right>$, i.e., the vacuum …
We study whether the hinted 750 GeV resonance at the LHC can be a Coleman-Weinberg inflaton which is non-minimally coupled to gravity. Since the inflaton must couple to new charged and coloured states to reproduce the LHC diphoton signature, the same interaction can generate its effective potential and trigger the electroweak symmetry breaking via the portal coupling to the Higgs boson. This inflationary scenario predicts a lower bound on the tensor-to-scalar ratio of $r\gtrsim 0.006$, where the minimal value corresponds to the measured spectral index $n_s\simeq0.97$. However, we find that the…
Recent analysis shows that if the 125-126 GeV LHC resonance turns out to be the Standard Model Higgs boson, the electroweak vacuum would be a metastable state at 98% C.L. In this paper we argue that, during inflation, the electroweak vacuum can actually be very short-lived, contrary to the conclusion that follows from the flat spacetime analysis. Namely, in the case of a pure Higgs potential the electroweak vacuum decays via the Hawking-Moss transition, which has no flat spacetime analogue. As a result, the Higgs vacuum is unstable, unless the rate of inflation is low enough: $H_{\rm inf}\less…
In the absence of new physics around $10^{10}$ GeV, the electroweak vacuum is at best metastable. This represents a major challenge for high scale inflationary models as, during the early rapid expansion of the universe, it seems difficult to understand how the Higgs vacuum would not decay to the true lower vacuum of the theory with catastrophic consequences if inflation took place at a scale above $10^{10}$ GeV. In this paper we show that the non-minimal coupling of the Higgs boson to curvature could solve this problem by generating a direct coupling of the Higgs boson to the inflationary pot…
Measurements of the Higgs boson and top quark masses indicate that the Standard Model Higgs potential becomes unstable around $Λ_I \sim 10^{11}$ GeV. This instability is cosmologically relevant since quantum fluctuations during inflation can easily destabilize the electroweak vacuum if the Hubble parameter during inflation is larger than $Λ_I$ (as preferred by the recent BICEP2 measurement). We perform a careful study of the evolution of the Higgs field during inflation, obtaining different results from those currently in the literature. We consider both tunneling via a Coleman-de Luccia or Ha…
In the standard model the (Brout-Englert-)Higgs quartic coupling becomes negative at high energies rendering our current electroweak vacuum metastable, but with an instability timescale much longer than the age of the Current Universe. During cosmological Inflation, unless there is a non-minimal coupling to gravity, the Higgs field is pushed away from the origin of its potential due to quantum fluctuations. It is therefore a mystery how we have remained in our current vacuum if we went through such a period of Inflation. In this work we study the effect of top quarks created gravitationally du…
We present a model of inflation in a supergravity framework in the Einstein frame where the Higgs field of the next to minimal supersymmetric standard model (NMSSM) plays the role of the inflaton. Previous attempts which assumed non-minimal coupling to gravity failed due to a tachyonic instability of the singlet field during inflation. A canonical Kähler potential with \textit{minimal coupling} to gravity can resolve the tachyonic instability but runs into the $η$-problem. We suggest a model which is free of the $η$-problem due to an additional coupling in the Kähler potential which is allowed…
A low reheating temperature is now well motivated by the recently reconsidered gravitino problem, if we incorporate supergravity. In this article, we propose a model which naturally realizes a low reheating temperature. The model is based on the next to minimal supersymmetric standard model (NMSSM) by identifying a singlet scalar field as the inflaton. This entertains the possibility that the inflaton may be detected at future colliders, such as the LHC.
We investigate how inflation model selection is affected by the presence of additional free-streaming relativistic degrees of freedom, i.e. dark radiation. We perform a full Bayesian analysis of both inflation parameters and cosmological parameters taking reheating into account self-consistently. We compute the Bayesian evidence for a few representative inflation scenarios in both the standard $Λ$CDM model and an extension including dark radiation parametrised by its effective number of relativistic species $N_\mathrm{eff}$. Using a minimal dataset (Planck low-$\ell$ polarisation, temperature …
In the conventional metric formulation of gravity, the Higgs Inflation model violates unitarity in the electroweak vacuum in Higgs scattering at the energy scale $Λ\sim M_{Pl}/ξ$, where $ξ\sim 10^4$ is the non-minimal coupling of the Higgs to the Ricci scalar. In the Palatini formulation it is commonly believed that $Λ\sim M_{Pl}/\sqrtξ$, where $ξ\sim 10^{9}$. Here we reconsider unitarity violation in the electroweak vacuum in the Palatini formulation. We argue that there is no unitarity violation in Higgs scattering in the Palatini non-minimally coupled Standard Model in the electroweak vacuu…
We develop a supersymmetric bi-axion model of high-scale inflation coupled to supergravity, in which the axionic structure originates from, and is protected by, gauge symmetry in an extra dimension. While local supersymmetry (SUSY) is necessarily Higgsed at high scales during inflation we show that it can naturally survive down to the $\sim$ TeV scale in the current era in order to resolve the electroweak hierarchy problem. We show how a suitable inflationary effective potential for the axions can be generated at tree-level by charged fields under the higher-dimensional gauge symmetry. The inf…
We consider the possibility of an oscillating scalar field accounting for dark matter and dynamically controlling the spontaneous breaking of the electroweak symmetry through a Higgs-portal coupling. This requires a late decay of the inflaton field, such that thermal effects do not restore the electroweak symmetry after reheating, and so inflation is followed by an inflaton matter-dominated epoch. During inflation, the dark scalar field acquires a large expectation value due to a negative non-minimal coupling to curvature, thus stabilizing the Higgs field by holding it at the origin. After inf…
We consider single-field inflation in light of string-motivated "swampland" conjectures suggesting that effective scalar field theories with a consistent UV completion must have field excursion $Δϕ\lesssim M_{\rm Pl}$, in combination with a sufficiently steep potential, $M_{\rm Pl} V_ϕ/V \gtrsim {\cal O}(1)$. Here, we show that the swampland conjectures are inconsistent with existing observational constraints on single-field inflation. Focusing on the observationally favoured class of concave potentials, we map the allowed swampland region onto the $n_S$-$r$ "zoo plot" of inflationary models, …
The issue of electroweak vacuum stability is studied in presence of a scalar field which participates in modifying the minimal chaotic inflation model. It is shown that the threshold effect on the Higgs quartic coupling originating from the Higgs-inflaton sector interaction can essentially make the electroweak vacuum stable upto the Planck scale. On the other hand we observe that the new physics parameters in this combined framework are enough to provide deviation from the minimal chaotic inflation predictions so as to keep it consistent with recent observation by Planck 2015.
We derive one- and two-loop renormalization group equations (RGEs) of Higgs-$R^2$ inflation. This model has a non-minimal coupling between the Higgs and the Ricci scalar and a Ricci scalar squared term on top of the standard model. The RGEs derived in this paper are valid as long as the energy scale of interest (in the Einstein frame) is below the Planck scale. We also discuss implications to the inflationary predictions and the electroweak vacuum metastability.
The abundance of the QCD axion is known to be suppressed if the Hubble parameter during inflation, $H_{\rm inf}$, is lower than the QCD scale, and if the inflation lasts sufficiently long. We show that the tight upper bound on the inflation scale can be significantly relaxed if the eternal old inflation is driven by the standard-model Higgs field trapped in a false vacuum at large field values. Specifically, $H_{\rm inf}$ can be larger than $100\,$GeV if the false vacuum is located above the intermediate scale. We also discuss the slow-roll inflation after the tunneling from the false vacuum t…
Through a detailed numerical investigation in three spatial dimensions, we demonstrate that long-lived time-dependent field configurations emerge dynamically during symmetry breaking in an expanding de Sitter spacetime. We investigate two situations: a single scalar field with a double-well potential and the bosonic sector of an SU(2) non-Abelian Higgs model. For the single scalar, we show that large-amplitude oscillon configurations emerge spontaneously and persist to contribute about 1.2% of the energy density of the universe. We also show that for a range of parameters, oscillon lifetimes a…
We discuss models where the Higgs boson of the electroweak standard model plays the role of the inflaton. We focus on the question of the violation of perturbative unitarity due to the coupling of the Higgs boson either to the Ricci scalar or to the Einstein tensor and discuss the background dependence of the unitarity bounds. Our conclusion is that the simplest model which restricts itself to the standard model Higgs boson without introducing further degrees of freedom has a serious problem. However, in the asymptotically safe gravity scenario, the Higgs boson of the standard model could be t…
We show how to enlarge the $ν$MSM (the minimal extension of the standard model by three right-handed neutrinos) to incorporate inflation and provide a common source for electroweak symmetry breaking and for right-handed neutrino masses. In addition to inflation, the resulting theory can explain simultaneously dark matter and the baryon asymmetry of the Universe; it is consistent with experiments on neutrino oscillations and with all astrophysical and cosmological constraints on sterile neutrino as a dark matter candidate. The mass of inflaton can be much smaller than the electroweak scale.
In scalaron-Higgs inflation the Standard Model Higgs boson is non-minimally coupled to gravity and the Einstein-Hilbert action is supplemented by the quadratic scalar curvature invariant. For the quartic Higgs self-coupling $λ$ fixed at the electroweak scale, we find that the resulting inflationary two-field model effectively reduces to a single field model with the same predictions as in Higgs inflation or Starobinsky inflation, including the limit of a vanishing non-minimal coupling. For the same model, but with the scalar field a priori not identified with the Standard Model Higgs boson, we…
We consider a minimal classically scale-invariant extension of the Standard Model. In this theory, the Higgs mechanism is triggered and the electroweak symmetry breaking is generated radiatively by the Coleman-Weinberg sector which is coupled to the SM Higgs. We extend the Higgs portal interactions of the theory to include an additional singlet which is also non-minimally coupled to gravity. This generates a single-field slow-roll inflation mechanism in the effective field theory formulation which is robust up to Planck scales. Our approach does not require integrating in any additional new ph…
Current measurements of Standard Model parameters suggest that the electroweak vacuum is metastable. This metastability has important cosmological implications, because large fluctuations in the Higgs field could trigger vacuum decay in the early universe. For the false vacuum to survive, interactions which stabilize the Higgs during inflation -- e.g., inflaton-Higgs interactions or non-minimal couplings to gravity -- are typically necessary. However, the post-inflationary preheating dynamics of these same interactions could also trigger vacuum decay, thereby recreating the problem we sought t…
Inflationary cosmology represents a well-studied framework to describe the expansion of space in the early universe, as it explains the origin of the large-scale structure of the cosmos and the isotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation. The recent detection of the Higgs boson renewed research activities based on the assumption that the inflaton could be identified with the Higgs field. At the same time, the question whether the inflationary potential can be be extended to the electroweak scale and whether it should be necessarily chosen ad hoc in order to be physically acceptable a…
Higgs inflation is attractive because it identifies the inflaton with the electroweak Higgs boson. In this work, we construct a new class of supersymmetric Higgs inflationary models in the no-scale supergravity with an SU(5) GUT group. Extending the no-scale Kahler potential and SU(5) GUT superpotential, we derive a generic potential for Higgs inflation that includes the quadratic monomial potential and a Starobinsky-type potential as special limits. This type of models can accommodate a wide range of the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r = O(10^{-3}-10^{-1})$, as well as a scalar spectral index $n_s …
We consider the construction of inverted hybrid inflation models in which the vacuum energy during inflation is at the TeV scale, and the inflaton couples to the Higgs field. Such models are of interest in the context of some recently proposed models of electroweak baryogenesis. We demonstrate how constraints on these models arise from quantum corrections, and how self-consistent examples may be constructed, albeit at the expense of fine-tuning. We discuss two possible ways in which the baryon asymmetry of the universe may be produced in these models. One of them is based on preheating and a c…
We propose an inflationary scenario based on a many-flavor hidden QCD with eight flavors, which realizes the almost scale-invariant (walking) gauge dynamics. The theory predicts two types of composite (pseudo) Nambu-Goldstone bosons, the pions and the lightest scalar (dilaton) associated with the spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking and its simultaneous violation of the approximate scale invariance. The dilaton acts as an inflaton, where the inflaton potential is induced by the nonperturbative-scale anomaly linked with the underlying theory. The inflaton potential parameters are highly constra…
Here we show that local scale invariance -- invariance under Weyl rescalings -- may safely coexist with broken electroweak symmetry if assume the Weyl geometric theory to govern the affine structure of spacetime. We find that within the resulting scale invariant theory of gravity cosmological inflation is enough to explain the large hierarchy between the Higgs and Planck masses.
We develop the formalism for computing gravitational corrections to vacuum decay from de Sitter space as a sub-Planckian perturbative expansion. Non-minimal coupling to gravity can be encoded in an effective potential. The Coleman bounce continuously deforms into the Hawking-Moss bounce, until they coincide for a critical value of the Hubble constant. As an application, we reconsider the decay of the electroweak Higgs vacuum during inflation. Our vacuum decay computation reproduces and improves bounds on the maximal inflationary Hubble scale previously computed through statistical techniques.
We investigate the production of the hypermagnetic gyrotropy when the electric and magnetic gauge couplings evolve at different rates, as it happens in the the relativistic theory of the Van der Waals forces. If a pseudo-scalar interaction breaks the duality symmetry of the corresponding equations, the gyrotropic configurations of the hypermagnetic fields can be amplified from the vacuum during an inflationary stage of expansion. After charting the parameter space of the model in terms of the rates of evolution of the magnetic and electric gauge couplings, we identify the regions where the gyr…
The recently suggested Festina-Lente (FL) bound provides a lower bound on the masses of ${\rm U(1)}$ charged particles in terms of the positive vacuum energy. Since the charged particle masses in the Standard Model (SM) are generated by the Higgs mechanism, the FL bound provides a testbed of consistent Higgs potentials in the current dark energy-dominated universe as well as during inflation. We study the implications of the FL bound on the UV behavior of the Higgs potential for a miniscule vacuum energy, as in the current universe. We also present values of the Hubble parameter and the Higgs …
Perturbation theory alone fails to describe thermodynamics of the electroweak phase transition. We review a technique combining perturbative and non-perturbative methods to overcome this challenge. Accordingly, the principal theme is a tutorial of high-temperature dimensional reduction. We present an explicit derivation with a real singlet scalar and compute the thermal effective potential at two-loop order. In particular, we detail the dimensional reduction for a real-singlet extended Standard Model. The resulting effective theory will impact future non-perturbative studies based on lattice s…
The measurements of the Higgs mass and top Yukawa coupling indicate that we live in a very special Universe, at the edge of the absolute stability of the electroweak vacuum. If fully stable, the Standard Model (SM) can be extended all the way up to the inflationary scale and the Higgs field, non-minimally coupled to gravity with strength $ξ$, can be responsible for inflation. We show that the successful Higgs inflation scenario can also take place if the SM vacuum is not absolutely stable. This conclusion is based on two effects that were overlooked previously. The first one is associated with…
Current cosmological data favour inflationary models non-minimally coupled to gravity. In this work we study the implications of the metastability of the electroweak vacuum in this framework. We consider an inflaton field with a non-minimal coupling to Ricci curvature and a portal coupling between the Higgs field and the inflaton and find that the ratio of the two couplings is severely constrained from stability during inflation and reheating dynamics, with constraints becoming more severe for weaker non-minimal coupling as during inflation Higgs fluctuations are amplified by inflationary expa…
We study symmetry breaking and topological defects in a supersymmetric model with gauge group $\text{U}(2)$, which can be identified with the right-handed part $\text{SU}(2)_R \times \text{U}(1)_{B-L}$ of an extended electroweak symmetry of the Standard Model. The model has two phases of hybrid inflation terminated by tachyonic preheating where either monopoles and strings or, alternatively, dumbbells are formed. In the first case a stochastic gravitational wave background is predicted in the LIGO-Virgo band, possibly extending to the LISA frequency band and to nanohertz frequencies, which is …
We review the new theory of modified supergravity, dubbed F(\cal R) supergravity, and some of its recent applications to inflation and reheating in the early universe cosmology. The F(\cal R) supergravity is the N=1 locally supersymmetric extension of the f(R) gravity in four space-time dimensions. A manifestly supersymmetric formulation of the F(\cal R) supergravity exist in terms of N=1 superfields, by using the (old) minimal Poincar'e supergravity in curved superspace. We find the conditions for stability, the absence of ghosts and tachyons. Three models of the F(\cal R) supergravity are st…
We propose a Standard Model extension, coined VISH$ν$ (Variant-axIon Seesaw Higgs $ν$-trino), that is an $N_{\text{DW}} = 1$ variation of its predecessor, the $ν$DFSZ model. In accounting for the origin of neutrino masses, dark matter and the baryon asymmetry of the universe, VISH$ν$ inherits the explanatory power of $ν$DFSZ while, of course, resolving the strong $CP$ problem. In both models, the electroweak scale is naturally protected from a high seesaw scale that is identified with the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) spontaneous symmetry breaking scale. Through a flavour variant coupling structure, VISH$…
Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model with gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking has all the necessary ingredients for a successful sub-eV Hubble scale inflation $H_{\rm inf} \sim 10^{-3}-10^{-1}$ eV. The model generates the right amplitude for scalar density perturbations and a spectral tilt within the range, $0.90 \leq n_s \leq 1$. The reheat temperature is $T_{\rm R} \ls 10$ TeV, which strongly prefers electroweak baryogenesis and creates the right abundance of gravitinos with a mass $m_{3/2} \gs 100$ keV to be the dark matter.
We propose a new alternative for baryogenesis which resolves a number of the problems associated with GUT and electroweak scenarios, and which may allow baryogenesis even in modest extensions of the standard model. If the universe never reheats above the electroweak scale following inflation, GUT baryon production does not occur and at the same time thermal sphalerons, gravitinos and monopoles are not produced in abundance. Nevertheless, non-thermal production of sphaleron configurations via preheating could generate the observed baryon asymmetry of the universe.
We show how a heavy scalar singlet with a large vacuum expectation value can evade the potential instability of the Standard Model electroweak vacuum. The quartic interaction between the heavy scalar singlet and the Higgs doublet leads to a positive tree-level threshold correction for the Higgs quartic coupling, which is very effective in stabilizing the potential. We provide examples, such as the see-saw, invisible axion and unitarized Higgs inflation, where the proposed mechanism is automatically implemented in well-defined ranges of Higgs masses.
We introduce conformal coupling of the Standard Model Higgs field to gravity and discuss the subsequent modification of $R^2$-inflation. The main observation is a lower temperature of reheating which happens mostly through scalaron decays into gluons due to the conformal (trace) anomaly. This modifies all predictions of the original $R^2$-inflation. To the next-to-leading order in slow roll parameters we calculate amplitudes and indices of scalar and tensor perturbations produced at inflation. The results are compared to the next-to-leading order predictions of $R^2$-inflation with minimally c…
We propose a non-oscillatory no-scale supergravity model of inflation (NO-NO inflation) in which the inflaton does not oscillate at the end of the inflationary era. Instead, the Universe is then dominated by the inflaton kinetic energy density (kination). During the transition from inflation to kination, the Universe preheats instantly through a coupling to Higgs-like fields. These rapidly annihilate and scatter into ultra-relativistic matter particles, which subsequently dominate the energy density, and reheating occurs at a temperature far above that of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. After the el…
The Standard Model Higgs becomes tachyonic at high energy scales according to current measurements. This unstable regime of the Higgs potential can be realized in the early Universe during high scale inflation, potentially with catastrophic consequences. This letter highlights a crucial inherent feature of such configurations that has so far remained ignored: Higgs particle production out of vacuum induced by the rapidly evolving Higgs field, which gets exponentially enhanced due to the tachyonic instability. Such explosive particle production can rapidly drain energy away from the Higgs field…
The measurement of the Higgs mass at the LHC has confirmed that the Standard Model electroweak vacuum is a shallow local minimum and is not absolutely stable. In addition to a probable unacceptably fast tunneling to the deep true minimum, it is not clear how the observable present-day vacuum could be reached from the early Universe particularly following inflation. In this note it is shown that these problems can be alleviated if the Higgs field is non-minimally coupled to a higher-curvature theory of gravity which is effective in deriving inflation a la Starobinsky. Moreover, it implies that …
Using a physical renormalisation scheme we derive mass-dependent renormalisation group equations for the running of the Higgs quartic coupling within the Standard Model. Subsequently, we accurately take into account weak scale thresholds, resulting in a reduction of the error in the determination of the maximum $M_t$ required for absolute stability of the vacuum to 0.28 GeV. For the first time, we conclusively establish the fate of the electroweak vacuum, finding that absolute stability of the Higgs vacuum state is excluded at 99.98% C.L. We also discuss the consequences when this new result i…
A new noncommutative spacetime of structure $ {\cal M}^4 \times Z_2 \times Z_2$ is proposed. The generalized Hilbert-Einstein action contains gravity, all known interactions and Higgs field. This theory can also provide a unified geometric framework for multigravity, which might explain the existence of dark matter and inflationary cosmology. In other words, high energy physics has laid out the crude shape of the new spacetime, while cosmology will shed light to the more details of it.
The measured values of the Higgs and top masses and of the strong gauge coupling constant point to the near-criticality of the Standard Model, where two vacua at the electroweak and Planck scales are quasi-degenerate. We argue that the criticality is required by the occurrence of an eternal topological inflation induced by the Higgs potential. The role of this inflation is to continuously create sufficiently flat and homogeneous Universe, providing the necessary initial condition for the subsequent slow-roll inflation that generates the density perturbations of the right magnitude. While the c…
