Higgsflation at the GUT scale in a Higgsless Universe

Understand

We revisit inflation in induced gravity.

• Our focus is on models where the low scale Planck mass is completely determined by the breaking of the scaling symmetry in the field theory sector.
• The Higgs-like field which breaks the symmetry with a GUT-scale vacuum expectation value has non-minimal couplings to the curvature, induced by the gravitational couplings of the other light fields in the theory, so that its expectation value controls the gravitational strength.
• This field can drive inflation, and give a low energy universe in very good agreement with the cosmological observations.