Decay of the Universe

Phase transitions are part of everyday life, yet are also believed to be part of the history of our universe, where the nature of particle interactions change as the universe settles into its vacuum state. The recent discovery of the Higgs and its mass suggests that our vacuum may not be entirely stable, and that a further phase transition could take place. My talk will review how we find the probability of these phase transitions and I will discuss my recent work on how black holes can dramatically change the result, and discuss implications for the Higgs vacuum.