Electroweak vacuum instability and renormalized vacuum field fluctuations in Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker background

Abstract

The cosmological Higgs vacuum stability has been an attractive research subject, and it is crucial to accurately follow the development of the Higgs fluctuations. In this work, we thoroughly investigate how the vacuum fluctuations of the Higgs field affect the stability of the electroweak vacuum in Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) background. Adopting adiabatic Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin method approximation or adiabatic regularization methods, we clearly show that vacuum fluctuations of the Higgs field in the FLRW background depend on the curvature and also masses of the Higgs or other scalar fields. The Higgs fluctuations can generate true vacuum bubbles and trigger off a collapse of the electroweak vacuum. Furthermore we clearly show that the effective Higgs potential in the FLRW background is modified by the Higgs vacuum fluctuations. The vacuum fluctuations of the standard model fields can stabilize or destabilize the effective Higgs potential through backreaction effects. Considering the improved effective Higgs potential with the Higgs vacuum fluctuations δφ2