Gauge singlet scalar as inflaton and thermal relic dark matter

Sep, 2009
13 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Rev.D 80 (2009) 123507
e-Print:

Citations per year

2009201320172021202505101520
Abstract: (arXiv)
We add a gauge singlet scalar S to the Standard Model which is non-minimally coupled to gravity, such that S can act both as the inflaton and as thermal relic dark matter. We obtain the allowed region of the (m_s, m_h) parameter space which gives a spectral index in agreement with 1-sigma WMAP bounds and also produces the observed dark matter density while not violating vacuum stability or non-perturbativity constraints. We show that, in contrast to the case of Higgs inflation, once quantum corrections are included the spectral index is significantly larger than the classical value (n = 0.966) for all allowed values of the Higgs mass m_h. The range of Higgs mass compatible with the constraints is 145 GeV < m_h < 170 GeV. The S mass lies in the range 45 GeV < m_s < 1 TeV for the case of a real S scalar with large quartic self-coupling lambda_s, with a smaller upper bound for smaller lambda_s. A region of the parameter space is accessible to direct searches at the LHC via h -> SS, while future direct dark matter searches should be able to constrain the model.
  • 98.80.Cq
  • 95.35.+d
  • 12.60.-i
  • singlet: scalar
  • singlet: gauge
  • Higgs particle: mass
  • dark matter: density
  • inflaton
  • vacuum state: stability
  • inflation