Kavli Affiliate: Edward W. Kolb
| First 5 Authors: Tammi Chowdhury, Tammi Chowdhury, , ,
| Summary:
We study cosmological gravitational particle production (CGPP) in Higgs
inflation, wherein the inflaton is a scalar field with quartic self-coupling
$lambda$ and a nonminimal coupling to gravity $xi$, and which may, but need
not be, the Higgs boson of the Standard Model (SM). We find an explosive
particle production peaked on a characteristic comoving wavenumber $ksim
xi^2/3 a H$ with a peak occupation number that scales with $xi$. This new
peak in production can easily dominate over the conventional (minimally coupled
inflation) CGPP even for modest values of $xi$. The results apply for a wide
range of $xi$, e.g., as low as $xi=10$, which can be realized for the
Standard Model Higgs given suitable RG flow of the quartic coupling. We discuss
implications for late time relics such as dark matter.
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