February 27: Ruth Gregory (Durham University)

Time: 2pm
Location: 2N36
 
Title: The Fate of the Higgs Vacuum
 
Abstract: Now that the Higgs boson has finally been detected, its mass suggests that we are in a region of "metastability", with various claims being made about the lifetime of the vacuum. However, the new minimum lies in a Planckian regime, and we would expect gravity to be relevant in any decay process. The decay of a false vacuum is always described by a tunneling process, the Coleman-de Luccia instanton, however, this assumes our universe is featureless. Just as impurities can act as nucleation sites of a phase transition, gravitational impurities, in the guise of black holes, can act as bubble nucleation sites for false vacuum decay. I will describe how a black hole can significantly enhance the probability of vacuum decay, and discuss implications for the Higgs vacuum.