Related papers: Self-consistent radiative corrections to false vac…
We refine and update the metastability constraint on the Standard Model top and Higgs masses, by analytically including gravitational corrections to the vacuum decay rate. Present best-fit ranges of the top and Higgs masses mostly lie in…
The parameters of the Higgs potential of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) receive large radiative corrections which lift the mass of the lightest Higgs boson to the measured value of 126 GeV. Depending on the MSSM…
The so-called metastability bound asserts that an unnaturally small Higgs mass is a necessary condition for electroweak vacuum metastability, offering a new approach towards solving the hierarchy problem. So far, this result relies on the…
We present the two-loop ${\cal O}(\alpha_sG_Fm_t^2)$ correction to the $b\bar b$ decay rate of the Stan\-dard-Model Higgs boson, assuming that the $t$ quark is much heavier than the Higgs boson. Apart from the universal correction connected…
We consider the minimal U(1)$_{B-L}$ extension of the Standard Model (SM) with the classically conformal invariance, where an anomaly free U(1)$_{B-L}$ gauge symmetry is introduced along with three generations of right-handed neutrinos and…
We consider the possibility that the gauge hierarchy is a byproduct of the metastability of the electroweak vacuum, i.e., that whatever mechanism is responsible for the latter also sets the running Higgs mass to a value smaller than its…
We consider radiative corrections to false vacuum decay within the framework of quantum mechanics for the general potential of the form 1/2 M q^2 (q-A)(q-B), where M , A and B are arbitrary parameters. For this type of potential we provide…
We discuss the vacuum energy density term resulting from the spontaneous breakdown of the electroweak gauge symmetry, in the Higgs Mechanism. We alternatively expand the scalar field at one of the degenerate states that lie outside the…
A tunneling bounce driving the decay of a metastable vacuum must respect an integral constraint dictated by simple scaling arguments that is very useful to determine key properties of the bounce. After illustrating how this works in a…
Whether the Standard Model electroweak vacuum is stable, metastable or unstable depends crucially on the top mass (and, to a lesser extent, on other measurable quantities). These topics are reviewed and updated by taking into account the…
The measured (central) values of the Higgs and top quark masses indicate that the Standard Model (SM) effective potential develops an instability at high field values. The scale of this instability, determined as the Higgs field value at…
False vacuum decay, a quantum mechanical first-order phase transition in scalar field theories, is an important phenomenon in early universe cosmology. Recently, real-time semi-classical techniques based on ensembles of lattice simulations…
We present a fast and efficient method for studying vacuum stability constraints in multi-scalar theories beyond the Standard Model. This method is designed for a reliable use in large scale parameter scans. The minimization of the scalar…
We review the description of tunnelling phenomena in the semi-classical approximation in ordinary quantum mechanics and in quantum field theory. In particular, we describe in detail the calculation, up to the first quantum corrections, of…
We perform a precise calculation of the decay rate of the electroweak vacuum in the standard model as well as in models beyond the standard model. We use a recently-developed technique to calculate the decay rate of a false vacuum, which…
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…
We study the decay of the metastable symmetric phase in the standard model at finite temperature. For the SU(2)-Higgs model the two wave function correction terms $Z_{\vp}(\vp^2,T)$ and $Z_{\chi}(\vp^2,T)$ of Higgs and Goldstone boson…
We investigate the role of nonperturbative, bubble-like inhomogeneities on the decay rate of false-vacuum states in two and three-dimensional scalar field theories. The inhomogeneities are induced by setting up large-amplitude oscillations…
We revisit the stability of the Standard Model vacuum, and investigate its quantum effective potential using the highest available orders in perturbation theory and the most accurate determination of input parameters to date. We observe…
Within the framework of the MSSM, we compute the electroweak one-loop supersymmetric quantum corrections to the width $\Gamma (t\rightarrow W^{+}\, b)$ of the canonical main decay of the top quark. The results are presented in two on-shell…