Inflationary cosmology and the standard model Higgs with a small Hubble induced mass

Understand

We study the dynamics of the standard model Higgs field in the inflationary cosmology.

• Since metastability of our vacuum is indicated by the current experimental data of the Higgs boson and top quark, inflation models with a large Hubble parameter may have a problem: In such models, the Higgs field rolls down towards the unwanted true vacuum due to the large fluctuation in the inflationary background.
• However, this problem can be relaxed by supposing an additional mass term for the Higgs field generated during and after inflation.
• We point out that it does not have to be larger than the Hubble parameter if the number of $e$-folds during inflation is not too large.