Theory HEP Seminar

Preheating in the Higgs as Inflaton Model

Guy Moore

McGill

Recently Bezrukov and Shaposhnikov have proposed that if the (Standard Model) Higgs boson has a large nonminimal coupling to curvature, it can play the role of the inflaton. The model provides an example of a class of models where preheating occurs directly into degrees of freedom with nonabelian gauge interactions. I will discuss the new and interesting physics which arises in this model as the inflaton energy is converted into a thermal medium.