Joint Theory Seminar
Speaker: Jiji Fan (Brown U)
Title: Higgscitement: Cosmological Dynamics of Fine Tuning
Host: Xiaochuan Lu
Room: 432
Abstract: The Higgs potential appears to be fine-tuned, hence very sensitive to values of other scalar fields that couple to the Higgs. I will discuss that this feature can lead to a new epoch in the early universe featuring violent dynamics coupling the Higgs to a scalar modulus. The oscillating modulus drives tachyonic Higgs particle production. I will present a simple parametric understanding of when this process can lead to rapid modulus fragmentation, resulting in gravitational wave production. A nontrivial equation-of- state arising from the nonlinear dynamics also affects the time elapsed from inflation to the CMB, influencing fits of inflationary models. Supersymmetric theories automatically contain useful ingredients for this
picture.
