Critical point Higgs inflation in the Palatini formulation

Abstract

We study Higgs inflation in the Palatini formulation with the renormalisation group improved potential in the case when loop corrections generate a feature similar to an inflection point. Assuming that there is a threshold correction for the Higgs quartic coupling λ and the top Yukawa coupling yt, we scan the three-dimensional parameter space formed by the two jumps and the non-minimal coupling ξ. The spectral index ns can take any value in the observationally allowed range. The lower limit for the running is αs> −3.5 × 10−3, and αs can be as large as the observational upper limit. Running of the running is small. The tensor-to-scalar ratio is 2.2×10−17< r < 2 × 10−5. We find that slow-roll can be violated near the feature, and a possible period of ultra-slow-roll contributes to the widening of the range of CMB predictions. Nevertheless, for the simplest tree-level action, the Palatini formulation remains distinguishable from the metric formulation even when quantum corrections are taken into account, because of the small tensor-to-scalar ratio.