Related papers: Eternal Higgs inflation and cosmological constant …
Why the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ observed today is so much smaller than the Planck scale or why the universe is accelerating at present? This is so-called the cosmological constant fine-tuning problem. In this paper, we find that…
We study the instability of the Higgs vacuum caused by a cloud of strings. By catalysis, the decay rate of the vacuum is highly enhanced and, when the energy density of the cloud is larger than the critical value, a semi-classical vacuum…
The recent measurement of the Higgs boson mass implies a relatively slow rise of the Standard Model Higgs potential at large scales, and a possible second minimum at even larger scales. Consequently, the Higgs field may develop a large…
In no--scale supergravity global symmetries protect local supersymmetry and a zero value for the cosmological constant. We consider the breakdown of these symmetries and present a minimal SUGRA model motivated by the multiple point…
We study the classical dynamics of a non-abelian Higgs theory coupled to gravity in an isotropic and homogeneous Universe. For non-minimal coupling, this theory leads to a model of cosmic inflation that is very attractive due to its…
The Higgs boson quartic self-coupling in the Standard Model appears to become zero just below the Planck scale, with interesting implications to the stability fo the Higgs vacuum at high energies. We review the Multiple Point Principle that…
The cosmological constant problem is turned around to argue for a new foundational physics postulate underlying a consistent quantum theory of gravity and matter, such as string theory. This postulate is a quantum equivalence principle…
We interpret reported hints of a Standard Model Higgs boson at ~ 125 GeV in terms of high-scale supersymmetry breaking with a shift symmetry in the Higgs sector. More specifically, the Higgs mass range suggested by recent LHC data…
String theory has strong implications for cosmology: it tells us that we cannot have a cosmological constant, that single-field slow-roll inflation is ruled out, and that black holes decay. We elucidate the origin of these statements within…
We propose a model in which there exists a real scalar field $q$ satisfying a condition $\dot{q} =MH$ and its energy density is given by $(1/2)\dot{q}^2+V(q)$, where $H$ is the Hubble parameter ($H=\dot{a}/a$) and $M$ is a mass scale…
The Standard Model Higgs potential seems unstable at field values $h > h_{\rm top} \sim 10^{10}\,{\rm GeV}$. Vacuum decay can be triggered by $N\sim 4\pi/\lambda \sim 1000$ overlapped Higgs bosons with energy $\sqrt{\lambda} h_{\rm top}$.…
According to the current experimental data, the Higgs vacuum appears to be metastable due to the development of a second lower ground state in its potential. Consequently, vacuum decay would induce the nucleation of true vacuum bubbles with…
We propose a novel possibility for Higgs inflation where the perturbative unitarity below the Planck scale is ensured by construction and the successful predictions for inflation are accommodated. The conformal gravity coupling for the…
The idea that a background of invisible material pervades the whole universe is as old as the history of natural philosophy. Modern particle physics and cosmology support that idea and identify in the cosmic vacuum the ultimate source of…
A four-dimensional universe, arising from a flux compactification of Type IIB string theory, contains scalar fields with a potential determined by topological and geometric parameters of the internal -hidden- dimensions. We show that…
We present a new solution to the Higgs hierarchy problem based on dynamical vacuum selection in a landscape scanning the Higgs mass. In patches where the Higgs mass parameter takes a natural value, the Higgs potential only admits a minimum…
In a recent paper, we identified a cosmological sector of a flipped $SU(5)$ model derived in the free fermionic formulation of the heterotic superstring, containing the inflaton and the goldstino superfields with a superpotential leading to…
This note makes a self-contained exposition of the basic facts of big bang cosmology as they relate to inflation. The fundamental problems with that model are then explored. A quartic scalar potential model of inflation is evaluated which…
The empirical mass of the Higgs boson suggests small to vanishing values of the quartic Higgs self--coupling and the corresponding beta function at the Planck scale, leading to degenerate vacua. This leads us to suggest that the measured…
We consider extra compact dimensions as the origin of a cosmological universal energy density in the regular dimensions, with only graviton fields propagating in the compact space dimensions. The quantum zero point energy originating from…