16–17 Dec 2021
Centre for Particle Theory, Durham
Europe/London timezone

Light inflaton model in a metastable Universe

17 Dec 2021, 14:00
30m
Room 2 (Zoom)

Room 2

Zoom

20 minutes talk Full-length talks

Speaker

Ms Abigail Keats (University of Manchester)

Description

We minimally extend the Standard Model (SM) with a Z$_2$ symmetric potential containing a single scalar field, serving as our inflaton with a quartic self-coupling. In the model we have symmetry breaking in both sectors, and with the addition of an inflaton-Higgs portal, the Universe is able to efficiently reheat via 2-2 inflaton-Higgs scattering. Assuming that the Universe with a positive cosmological constant should be metastable, only one particular symmetry breaking pattern in the vacuum is possible, without the need to finely-tune the Higgs quartic self-coupling. Inflatons with masses in the range $O(10^{-3})\leq m_{\chi}\leq m_{h}$ and mixing angles that span $\theta_{m}^{2}=O(10^{-11}-10^{-2})$ evade all current cosmological, experimental and stability constraints required for a metastable electroweak (EW) vacuum. Upgraded particle physics experiments may be able to probe the parameter space with $\theta_{m}^{2}\geq O(10^{-4})$, where we would observe trilinear Higgs couplings suppressed by up to $2\%$ compared to the SM value. However to access the parameter space of very weakly-coupled inflaton, we rely on the proposals to build experiments that target the hidden sector.

Would you be interested in receiving feedback on your presentation? Yes
Are you happy for your talk to be recorded? Yes
Will you be pre-recording your talk? No
Could you please give the most relevant category for your talk? Beyond the Standard Model

Primary authors

Ms Abigail Keats (University of Manchester) Prof. Fedor Bezrukov (University of Manchester)

Presentation materials