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arXiv · 1506.06895

Lattice Calculation of the Decay of Primordial Higgs Condensate

Kari Enqvist·Sami Nurmi·Stanislav Rusak·David J. Weir
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Abstract

We study the resonant decay of the primordial Standard Model Higgs condensate after inflation into $SU(2)$ gauge bosons on the lattice. We find that the non-Abelian interactions between the gauge bosons quickly extend the momentum distribution towards high values, efficiently destroying the condensate after the onset of backreaction. For the inflationary scale $H = 10^8$ GeV, we find that 90% of the Higgs condensate has decayed after $n \sim 10$ oscillation cycles. This differs significantly from the Abelian case where, given the same coupling strengths, most of the condensate would persist after the resonance.

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Kari Enqvist, Sami Nurmi, Stanislav Rusak, David J. Weir. 2016-02-26. Lattice Calculation of the Decay of Primordial Higgs Condensate. https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516%2F2016%2F02%2F057

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