CTP Seminar
A modification to the standard hybrid inflation model, that connects a successful hybrid inflation scenario to the standard model Higgs sector, via the electroweak vacuum stability is proposed. The proposed model results in an effective inflation potential of a hilltop-type, with both the trans-Planckian and sub-Planckian inflation regimes consistent with the recent Planck/BICEP combined results. Reheating via the inflation sector decays to right-handed neutrinos is considered. It is shown that the couplings of the SM Higgs to the inflation sector can guarantee the electroweak vacuum stability up to the Planck scale. The so-called hybrid Higgs-inflaton model leads to a positive correction for the Higgs quartic coupling at a threshold scale, which is shown to have a very significant effect in stabilizing the electroweak vacuum. We find that even with O(1) neutrino Yukawa couplings, threshold corrections leave the SM vacuum stability intact.