Related papers: The Selfish Higgs
I propose a new mechanism to account for the observed tiny but finite dark energy in terms of a non-Abelian Higgs theory, which has infinitely many perturbative vacua characterized by a winding number, in the framework of inflationary…
Future measurements of primordial non-Gaussianity can reveal cosmologically produced particles with masses of order the inflationary Hubble scale and their interactions with the inflaton, giving us crucial insights into the structure of…
The universe we observe is homogeneous on super-horizon scales, leading to the ``cosmic homogeneity problem''. Inflation alleviates this problem but cannot solve it within the realm of conservative extrapolations of classical physics. A…
The fluctuations of the vacuum energy are treated as a non-equilibrium process and a stochastic model for the cosmological constant is presented, which yields a natural explanation for the smallness or zero value of the constant in the…
Any new scalar fields that perturbatively solve the hierarchy problem by stabilizing the Higgs mass also generate new contributions to the Higgs field-strength renormalization, irrespective of their gauge representation. These new…
The measured value of the Higgs quartic coupling $\lambda$ is peculiarly close to the critical value above which the Higgs potential becomes unstable, when extrapolated to high scales by renormalization group running. It is tempting to…
An extension of the Standard Model with three right-handed neutrinos and a simple invisible axion model can account for all experimentally confirmed signals of new physics (neutrino oscillations, dark matter and baryon asymmetry) in…
We consider the most general effective action for the four-form fluxes in the Standard Model coupled to gravity. The Higgs mass parameter can be relaxed to a correct value due to the four-form coupling to the Higgs field and it stops…
The existing constraints from particle colliders reveal a suspicious but nonlethal metastability for our current electroweak vacuum of Higgs potential in the standard model of particle physics, which is, however, disfavored in the early…
Just like the vector gauge bosons in the gauge theories, it is now known that gravitons acquire mass in the process of spontaneous symmetry breaking of diffeomorphisms through the condensation of scalar fields. The point is that we should…
We are considering the cosmological consequences of an induced gravity theory coupled to the minimal standard model of particle physics. The non-minimal coupling parameter between gravity and the Higgs field must then be very large,…
We study the details of eternal inflation in the presence of a spectator Higgs field within the framework of the minimal Standard Model. We have recently shown that in the presence of scalar field(s) which allow inflation only within a…
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…
Higgs inflation has received a remarkable attention in the last few years due to its simplicity and predictive power. The key point of this model is the nonminimal coupling to gravity in unitary gauge. As such, this theory is in fact a…
The Higgs mechanism is one of the central pieces of the Standard Model of electroweak interactions and thanks to it we can generate the masses of the elementary particles. Its fundamental origin is nonetheless unknown. Furthermore, in order…
It is possible that the expansion of the universe began with an inflationary phase, in which the inflaton driving the process also was a Higgs field capable of stabilizing magnetic monopoles in a grand-unified gauge theory. If so, then the…
The most natural way to break the GUT gauge symmetry is with a Higgs field whose vacuum expectation value is of order $10^{16}\,\mbox{GeV}$ but whose mass is of order $10^2$ to $10^3\,\mbox{GeV}$. This can lead to a cosmological history…
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…
The quartic and trilinear Higgs field couplings to an additional real scalar are renormalizable, gauge and Lorentz invariant. Thus, on general grounds, one expects such couplings between the Higgs and an inflaton in quantum field theory. In…
The action for gravity and the standard model includes, as well as the positive energy fermion and boson fields, negative energy fields. The Hamiltonian for the action leads through a positive and negative energy symmetry of the vacuum to a…