What is triggering the Higgs mechanism and inflation?

Jegerlehner, F. (2014) What is triggering the Higgs mechanism and inflation? Il nuovo cimento C, 37 (2). pp. 157-163. ISSN 1826-9885

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Abstract

We review a recent analysis presented in arXiv:1304.7813 [hep-phys] and 1305.6652 [hep-phys]. After the discovery of the Higgs the most relevant structures of the SM have been verified and for the first time we know all parameters of the SM within remarkable accuracy. Together with recent calculations of the SM renormalization group coefficients up to three loops we can safely extrapolate running couplings high up in energy. Assuming that the SM is a low energy effective theory of a cutoff theory residing at the Planck scale, we are able to calculate the effective bare parameters of the underlying cutoff system. For my specific set of MS input parameters, it turns out that the bare mass term changes sign not far below the Planck scale, which means that in the early universe the SM was in the symmetric phase. The sign-flip, which is a result of a conspiracy between the SM couplings and their screening/antiscreening behavior, triggers the Higgs mechanism. Above the Higgs phase transition the bare mass term in the Higgs potential must have had a large positive value, enhanced by the quadratic divergence of the bare Higgs mass. The Higgs mass term thus provides the large dark energy density in the early universe, which triggers Gaussian slow-roll inflation, i.e. the SM Higgs is the inflaton scalar field. Reheating is dominated by the decay of the heavy Higgses into (in the symmetric phase) massless top/anti-top quark pairs. The Higgs mechanism stops inflation and the subsequent electroweak phase transition provides the masses to the SM particles in proportion to their coupling strength. The previously most abundantly produced particles are now the heaviest and decay into the lighter ones, by cascading down the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM)-matrix from top and bottom to normal matter. Baryon-number B violating interactions are naturally provided by Weinberg’s set of close-by dimension 6 four-fermion effective interactions. Since matter is produced originating in the primordial heavy Higgs fields via C- and CP-violating decays we have actually a new scenario which could explain the baryon-asymmetry essentially in terms of SM physics.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Electroweak interactions ; Electromagnetic processes and properties ; Electroweak radiative corrections ; Electromagnetic corrections to strong- and weak-interaction processes
Subjects: 500 Scienze naturali e Matematica > 530 Fisica
Depositing User: Marina Spanti
Date Deposited: 14 May 2020 16:47
Last Modified: 14 May 2020 16:47
URI: http://eprints.bice.rm.cnr.it/id/eprint/18572

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