### Particle, Astrophysics, and Nuclear Physics Seminar

Monday, March 16, 2015
2:00pm – 3:00pm

Storrs Campus
Gant Science Complex, Room PB-121

Professor Fedor Bezrukov, Physics Department, University of Connecticut

“Living Beyond the Edge - Higgs Inflation, Metastable Vacua, and Importance of Radiative Corrections”

The measurements of the Higgs mass and the top Yukawa coupling indicate that we live in a very special Universe, at the edge of the absolute stability of the electroweak vacuum. While fully stable situation allows for simple Higgs Inflationary setup, boundary and unstable situations turn out to be also very interesting, and also allow for inflation and successful Universe evolution. The key point is taking into account radiative corrections to the couplings at the energy scale $M_P/\xi$. Then, the inflationary potential can appear even for metastable SM vacuum, and the temperature potential at preheating prevents the Universe to settle in the high scale vacuum.

Contact:

Dawn Rawlinson, 486-4916, dawn.rawlinson@uconn.edu

Physics Department (primary)