Spacetime Dynamics of a Higgs Vacuum Instability During Inflation

Understand

A remarkable prediction of the Standard Model is that, in the absence of corrections lifting the energy density, the Higgs potential becomes negative at large field values.

• If the Higgs field samples this part of the potential during inflation, the negative energy density may locally destabilize the spacetime.
• We use numerical simulations of the Einstein equations to study the evolution of inflation-induced Higgs fluctuations as they grow towards the true (negative-energy) minimum.
• These simulations show that forming a single patch of true vacuum in our past light cone during inflation is incompatible with the existence of our Universe; the boundary of the true vacuum region grows outward in a causally disconnected manner from the crunching interior, which forms a black hole.