Classical and Quantum Initial Conditions for Higgs Inflation

Understand

We investigate whether Higgs inflation can occur in the Standard Model starting from natural initial conditions or not.

• The Higgs has a non-minimal coupling to the Ricci scalar.
• We confine our attention to the regime where quantum Einstein gravity effects are small in order to have results that are independent of the ultraviolet completion of gravity.
• At the classical level we find no tuning is required to have a successful Higgs inflation, provided the initial homogeneity condition is satisfied.