Direct Higgs-gravity interaction and stability of our Universe

Understand

The Higgs effective potential becomes unstable at approximately $10^{11}$ GeV, and if only standard model interactions are considered, the lifetime $\tau$ of the electroweak vacuum turns out to be much larger than the age of the Universe $T_U$.

• It is well known, however, that $\tau$ is extremely sensitive to the presence of unknown new physics: the latter can enormously lower $\tau$.
• This poses a serious problem for the stability of our Universe, demanding for a physical mechanism that protects it from a disastrous decay.
• We have found that there exists a universal stabilizing mechanism that naturally originates from the nonminimal coupling between gravity and the Higgs boson.