Centre for Particle Theory, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, United Kingdom.
Perimeter Institute, 31 Caroline Street, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5, Canada.
Phys Rev Lett. 2015 Aug 14;115(7):071303. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.071303. Epub 2015 Aug 13.
We discuss the effect of gravitational interactions on the lifetime of the Higgs vacuum where generic quantum gravity corrections are taken into account. Using a "thin-wall" approximation, we provide a proof of principle that small black holes can act as seeds for vacuum decay, spontaneously nucleating a new Higgs phase centered on the black hole with a lifetime measured in millions of Planck times rather than billions of years. The corresponding parameter space constraints are, however, extremely stringent; therefore, we also present numerical evidence suggesting that with thick walls, the parameter space may open up. Implications for collider black holes are discussed.
我们讨论了引力相互作用对考虑了一般量子引力修正的希格斯真空寿命的影响。利用“薄壁”近似，我们提供了一个原理性的证明，即小黑洞可以作为真空衰变的种子，自发地在黑洞中心产生一个新的希格斯相，其寿命以数百万个普朗克时间来衡量，而不是数十亿年。然而，相应的参数空间约束是极其严格的；因此，我们还提供了数值证据表明，对于厚壁，参数空间可能会打开。讨论了对碰撞黑洞的影响。
