Decay of the standard model Higgs field after inflation
Entity
UAM. Departamento de Física TeóricaPublisher
American Physical SocietyDate
2015-10-12Citation
10.1103/PhysRevD.92.083511
Physical Review D 92.8 (2015): 083511
ISSN
1550-7998 (print); 1550-2368 (online)DOI
10.1103/PhysRevD.92.083511Funded by
This work is supported by the Research Project of the Spanish MINECO No. FPA2012-39684-C03-02 and the Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa Program No. SEV-2012-0249. F. T. is supported by the FPI-Severo Ochoa Ph.D. Fellowship No. SVP-2013-067697Project
Gobierno de España. FPA2012-39684-C03-02; Gobierno de España. SEV-2012-0249; Gobierno de España. SVP-2013-067697Editor's Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.92.083511Subjects
FísicaRights
© 2015 authorsAbstract
We study the nonperturbative dynamics of the standard model (SM) after inflation, in the regime where the SM is decoupled from (or weakly coupled to) the inflationary sector. We use classical lattice simulations in an expanding box in (3+1) dimensions, modeling the SM gauge interactions with both global and Abelian-Higgs analogue scenarios. We consider different postinflationary expansion rates. During inflation, the Higgs forms a condensate, which starts oscillating soon after inflation ends. Via nonperturbative effects, the oscillations lead to a fast decay of the Higgs into the SM species, transferring most of the energy into Z and W± bosons. All species are initially excited far away from equilibrium, but their interactions lead them into a stationary stage, with exact equipartition among the different energy components. From there on, the system eventually reaches equilibrium. We have characterized in detail, in the different expansion histories considered, the evolution of the Higgs and of its dominant decay products until equipartition is established. We provide a useful mapping between simulations with different parameters, from which we derive a master formula for the Higgs decay time as a function of the coupling constants, Higgs initial amplitude and postinflationary expansion rate
Files in this item
Google Scholar:Figueroa, Daniel G.
-
García-Bellido Capdevila, Juan
-
Torrentí, Francisco
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.