2004/04/30 by B. Van Tent, Bartjan van Tent, Jan Smit +1 · 1 citation
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Electroweak interaction #Electroweak scale #Geometry #Higgs boson #Inflation (cosmology) #Inflaton #Mathematics #Mixing (physics) #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Scalar (mathematics) #Scale (ratio) #Spectral index #Spectral line #Theoretical physics #astro-ph #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2004/07/003
published as JCAP 0407 (2004) 003 · 21 pages, 4 figures. v2: Two references added, matches version to be published in JCAP
openalex publication_date 2004/07/10 · arxiv created 2004/07/13 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We construct a phenomenological model of electroweak-scale inflation that is in accordance with recent cosmic microwave background observations by WMAP, while setting the stage for a zero-temperature electroweak transition as assumed in recent models of baryogenesis. We find that the scalar spectral index especially poses tight constraints for low-scale inflation models. The inflaton–Higgs coupling leads to substantial mixing of the scalar degrees of freedom. Two types of scalar particle emerge with decay widths similar to that of the Standard Model Higgs particle.