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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Attracting the electroweak scale to a tachyonic trap

Sokratis Trifinopoulos1,* and Miguel Vanvlasselaer2,3,4,†

  • 1Center for Theoretical Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
  • 2Theoretische Natuurkunde and IIHE/ELEM, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussel, Belgium and The International Solvay Institutes, Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium
  • 3SISSA International School for Advanced Studies, Via Bonomea 265, 34136, Trieste, Italy
  • 4INFN, Sezione di Trieste, SISSA, Via Bonomea 265, 34136, Trieste, Italy

  • *trifinos@mit.edu
  • †miguel.vanvlasselaer@vub.be
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Phys. Rev. D 107, L071701 – Published 19 April, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.107.L071701

Abstract

We propose a new mechanism to dynamically select the electroweak scale during inflation. An axionlike field ϕ that couples quadratically to the Higgs moves with a large initial velocity towards a critical point ϕc where the Higgs becomes massless. When ϕ crosses this point, it enters a region where the Higgs mass is tachyonic and this results into an explosive production of Higgs particles. Consequently, a backreaction potential is generated and the field ϕ is attracted back to ϕc. After a series of oscillations around this point it is eventually trapped in its vicinity due to the periodic term of the potential. The model avoids trans-Planckian field excursions, requires very few e-folds of inflation and it is compatible with inflation scales up to 105  GeV. The mass of ϕ lies in the range of hundreds of GeV to a few TeV and it can be potentially probed in future colliders.

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Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. D 107, L071701– Published 19 April, 2023
  • Received 29 October 2022
  • Revised 16 January 2023
  • Accepted 3 April 2023
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