Higgs Vacuum Stability in a Mass-Dependent Renormalisation Scheme

Understand

Using a physical renormalisation scheme we derive mass-dependent renormalisation group equations for the running of the Higgs quartic coupling within the Standard Model.

• Subsequently, we accurately take into account weak scale thresholds, resulting in a reduction of the error in the determination of the maximum $M_t$ required for absolute stability of the vacuum to 0.28 GeV.
• For the first time, we conclusively establish the fate of the electroweak vacuum, finding that absolute stability of the Higgs vacuum state is excluded at 99.98% C.L.
• We also discuss the consequences when this new result is combined with the BICEP Collaboration's recent observation of B-mode polarisation in the cosmic microwave background, finding the Standard Model electroweak vacuum lifetime to be too short to have survived inflation.