Related papers: Stochastic evolution of scalar fields with continu…
We study the inflationary evolution of a scalar field $h$ with an unstable potential for the case where the Hubble parameter $H$ during inflation is larger than the instability scale $\Lambda_I$ of the potential. Quantum fluctuations in the…
A remarkable prediction of the Standard Model is that, in the absence of corrections lifting the energy density, the Higgs potential becomes negative at large field values. If the Higgs field samples this part of the potential during…
We review the dynamics of spectator scalar fields non-minimally coupled to gravity in the post-inflationary Universe, with particular emphasis on scenarios where the end of inflation is followed by a period of kination. In this context, the…
Measurements of the Higgs boson and top quark masses indicate that the Standard Model Higgs potential becomes unstable around $\Lambda_I \sim 10^{11}$ GeV. This instability is cosmologically relevant since quantum fluctuations during…
We study the quantum fluctuations of scalar fields with a variable effective mass during an inflationary phase. We consider the situation where the effective mass depends on a background scalar field, which evolves during inflation from…
Using a multi-field stochastic approach, we investigate the vacuum expectation value (VEV) during inflation of a scalar field charged under a mildly broken global $U(1)$ symmetry that can play the role of baryon or lepton number, or…
We investigate inflationary Higgs dynamics and constraints on the Standard Model parameters assuming the Higgs potential, computed to next-to-next leading order precision, is not significantly affected by new physics. For a high…
We compute the growth of the mean square of quantum fluctuations of test fields with small effective mass during a slowly changing, nearly de Sitter stage which took place in different inflationary models. We consider a minimally coupled…
We discuss models involving two scalar fields coupled to classical gravity that satisfy the general criteria: (i) the theory has no mass input parameters, (ii) classical scale symmetry is broken only through $-\frac{1}{12}\varsigma \phi^2…
We calculate the time evolution of the expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor for a minimally-coupled massless scalar field in cosmological spacetimes, with an application to dark energy in mind. We first study the evolution from…
We study the dynamics of the standard model Higgs field in the inflationary cosmology. Since metastability of our vacuum is indicated by the current experimental data of the Higgs boson and top quark, inflation models with a large Hubble…
Inflation is nowadays a well-established paradigm consistent with all the observations. The precise nature of the inflaton is however unknown and its role could be played by any candidate able to imitate a scalar condensate in the slow-roll…
In the Standard Model, the Higgs potential develops an instability at high field values when the quartic self-coupling runs negative. Large quantum fluctuations during cosmic inflation could drive the Higgs field beyond the potential…
In light of no discovered new physics at the LHC, ideas which tackle the Hierarchy Problem without novelties around the TeV scale must be taken seriously. Such is a cosmological relaxation model of the Higgs mass, proposed in the pre-LHC…
We consider an ultra-light scalar field with a mass comparable to (or lighter than) the Hubble parameter of the present universe, and calculate the time evolution of the energy-momentum tensor of the vacuum fluctuations generated during and…
If the Standard Model (SM) of elementary particle physics is assumed to hold good to arbitrarily high energies, then, for the best fit values of the parameters, the scalar potential of the Standard Model Higgs field turns negative at a high…
Light scalar fields acquire isocurvature fluctuations during inflation. While these fluctuations could lead to interesting observable signatures at small scales, they are strongly constrained on large scales by cosmic microwave background…
The Standard Model Higgs potential becomes unstable at large field values. After clarifying the issue of gauge dependence of the effective potential, we study the cosmological evolution of the Higgs field in presence of this instability…
We investigate the dynamics of the Higgs field at the end of inflation in the minimal scenario consisting of an inflaton field coupled to the Standard Model only through the non-minimal gravitational coupling $\xi$ of the Higgs field. Such…
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…