Higgs inflation in Gauss-Bonnet braneworld

Abstract

The measured masses of the Higgs boson and top quark indicate that the effective potential of the standard model either develops an unstable electroweak vacuum or stands stable all the way up to the Planck scale. In the latter case in which the top quark mass is about $2\sigma$ below its present central value, the Higgs boson can be the inflaton with the help of a large nonminimal coupling to curvature in four dimensions. We propose a scenario in which the Higgs boson can be the inflaton in a five-dimensional Gauss-Bonnet braneworld model to solve both the unitarity and stability problems which usually plague Higgs inflation. We find that in order for Higgs inflation to happen successfully in the Gauss-Bonnet regime, the extra dimension scale must appear roughly in the range between the TeV scale and the instability scale of standard model. At the tree level, our model can give rise to a naturally small nonminimal coupling $\xi\sim\mathcal{O}(1)$ for the Higgs quartic coupling $\lambda\sim\mathcal{O}(0.1)$ if the extra dimension scale lies at the TeV scale. At the loop level, the inflationary predictions at the tree level are preserved. Our model can be confronted with future experiments and observations from both particle physics and cosmology.