Preheating the Universe from the Standard Model Higgs

Understand

We discuss Preheating after an inflationary stage driven by the Standard Model (SM) Higgs field non-minimally coupled to gravity.

• We find that Preheating is driven by a complex process in which perturbative and non-perturbative effects occur simultaneously.
• The Higgs field, initially an oscillating coherent condensate, produces non-perturbatively W and Z gauge fields.
• These decay very rapidly into fermions, thus preventing gauge bosons to accumulate and, consequently, blocking the usual parametric resonance.