Higgs inflation in Einstein-Cartan gravity
Abstract
We study inflation driven by the Higgs field in the Einstein-Cartan formulation of gravity. In this theory, the presence of the Holst and Nieh-Yan terms with the Higgs field non-minimally coupled to them leads to three additional coupling constants. For a broad range of parameters, we find that inflation is both possible and consistent with observations. In most cases, the spectral index is given by (with the number of e-foldings) whereas the tensor-to-scalar ratio can vary between about and . Thus, there are scenarios of Higgs inflation in the Einstein-Cartan framework for which the detection of gravitational waves from inflation is possible in the near future. In certain limits, the known models of Higgs inflation in the metric and Palatini formulations of gravity are reproduced. Finally, we discuss the robustness of inflationary dynamics against quantum corrections due to the scalar and fermion fields.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2007.14978,
title = {Higgs inflation in Einstein-Cartan gravity},
author = {Mikhail Shaposhnikov and Andrey Shkerin and Inar Timiryasov and Sebastian Zell},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.14978},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
26 pages, 8 figures, 1 appendix; v2: updated figures and references, added short comparison with arXiv:2007.12595, minor corrections to formulas in sections 6.2 and 6.3, other small improvements; matches published version (including erratum)