title: Standard model false vacuum inflation: correlating the tensor-to-scalar ratio to the top quark and Higgs boson masses.
abstract: For a narrow band of values of the top quark and Higgs boson masses, the standard model Higgs potential develops a false minimum at energies of about 10(16)  GeV, where primordial inflation could have started in a cold metastable state. A graceful exit to a radiation-dominated era is provided, e.g., by scalar-tensor gravity models. We pointed out that if inflation happened in this false minimum, the Higgs boson mass has to be in the range 126.0±3.5  GeV, where ATLAS and CMS subsequently reported excesses of events. Here we show that for these values of the Higgs boson mass, the inflationary gravitational wave background has be discovered with a tensor-to-scalar ratio at hand of future experiments. We suggest that combining cosmological observations with measurements of the top quark and Higgs boson masses represent a further test of the hypothesis that the standard model false minimum was the source of inflation in the universe.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Ferrara and INFN Sezione di Ferrara, Via Saragat 1, I-44100 Ferrara, Italy. masina@fe.infn.it
authors.forename: Isabella
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Masina
authors.forename: Alessio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Notari