Observational signatures of Higgs inflation
Event details
| Date | 06.06.2016 |
| Hour | 14:00 › 15:00 |
| Speaker | Vera-Maria Enckell |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
I'll discuss the dependency of Higgs inflation on the non-renormalisable matching between the low energy Standard Model limit and the inflationary regime at high energies. In the top mass range mt>171.8 GeV the scenario robustly predicts the spectral index n_s≈0.97 and the tensor-to-scalar ratio r≈0.003. The matching is however non-trivial, even the best-fit values m_h = 125.09 GeV and m_t= 173.21 GeV require a jump δλ ∼ 0.01 in the Higgs coupling below the inflationary scale. For m_t<171.8 GeV, the matching may generate a feature in the inflationary potential. In this case the predicted values of n_s and r vary but the model is still falsifiable. For example, a detection of negative running of spectral index at level α_s <−0.01 would rule out Higgs inflation. The talk is based on a work with Sami Nurmi and Kari Enqvist [arXiv: 1603.07572].
Practical information
- General public
- Free