Higgs inflation and naturalness

N. Lerner, Rose and McDonald, John (2010) Higgs inflation and naturalness. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, 2010 (4): 15. ISSN 1475-7516

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Abstract

Inflation based on scalar fields which are non-minimally coupled to gravity has been proposed as a way to unify inflation with weak-scale physics, with the inflaton being identified with the Higgs boson or other weak-scale scalar article. These models require a large non-minimal coupling xi ~ 10^{4} to have agreement with the observed density perturbations. However, it has been suggested that such models are unnatural, due to an apparent breakdown of the calculation of Higgs-Higgs scattering via graviton exchange in the Jordan frame. Here we argue that Higgs inflation models are in fact natural and that the breakdown does not imply new physics due to strong-coupling effects or unitarity breakdown, but simply a failure of perturbation theory in the Jordan frame as a calculational method. This can be understood by noting that the model is completely consistent when analysed in the Einstein frame and that scattering rates in the two frames are equal by the Equivalence Theorem for non-linear field redefinitions.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Additional Information:
6 pages, LaTeX, additional discussion. An addendum comments on recent developments
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/core/keywords/physics
Subjects:
?? inflationcosmology of theories beyond the smphysicsastronomy and astrophysicsqc physics ??
ID Code:
56808
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
08 Aug 2012 13:45
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
15 Jul 2024 13:06