Abstract
For inflation driven by the Higgs field coupled non-minimally to gravity, we study the cutoff energy scale above which perturbation theory breaks down. Employing the metric formulation, we first give an overview of known results and then provide a new way to calculate a lower bound on the cutoff. Our approach neither relies on a gauge choice nor does it require any calculation of amplitudes. Instead, it exploits the fact that the S-matrix is invariant under field redefinitions. In agreement with previous findings, we demonstrate that the cutoff is significantly higher during inflation than in vacuum, which ensures the robustness of semi-classical predictions. Along the way, we generalize our findings to the Palatini formulation and comment on a useful parametrization of the Higgs doublet in both scenarios.
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Karananas, G.K., Shaposhnikov, M. & Zell, S. Field redefinitions, perturbative unitarity and Higgs inflation. J. High Energ. Phys. 2022, 132 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP06(2022)132
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP06(2022)132