Higgs dynamics in the early universe

Vis, J.M. van de (2019)

Doctoral Thesis

In the early universe, the dynamics of the Higgs field can give rise to many interesting phenomena. In the first part of this thesis, we study the behavior of the Higgs field during the reheating phase after cosmological inflation. We investigate the stability of the electroweak vacuum when the Higgs field is nonminimally coupled to gravity. We also study reheating in the scenario where the Higgs field itself drives inflation. In the second part, we study the possibility of generating the asymmetry between matter and antimatter during the electroweak phase transition -- the moment when the Higgs field starts to give mass to the other particles of the Standard Model. We show that it is not possible to constrain this process in a model-independent way. We also demonstrate that the predicted value of the baryon asymmetry is enhanced when leptons are included in the computation.

• Particle Physics
• Cosmology
• Early Universe
• Higgs
• Reheating
• Preheating
• Baryogenesis
• Electroweak phase transition

• All authors: Vis, J.M. van de
• Supervisor: Holten, J.W. van
• Co-supervisor: Postma, M.E.J.
• Committee: Konstandin, T.M.; Roest, D.; Achúcarro, A.; Eliel, E.R.; Schalm, K.E.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Leiden Institute of Physics (LION), Faculty of Science, Leiden University
• Date: 2019-07-02
• ISBN (print): 9789085934066