Vacuum Stability Bounds On Higgs Mass With Gravitational Contributions (1312.1925v2)

Abstract: We calculate the gravitational contributions to $\phi^4$ theory with general $R_\xi$ gauge-fixing choice and find that the result is gauge independent. Based on weak coupling expansion of gravity and ignoring the possible higher dimensional operators from "integrating out" the impact of gravity, we study the impacts of gravitational effects on vacuum stability. New contributions to the beta function of scalar quartic coupling $\la$ by gravitational effects can modify the RGE running of $\la$ near the Planck scale. Numerical calculations show that the lower bound of higgs mass requiring absolutely vacuum stability can be relaxed for almost 0.6 to 0.8 GeV depending on the choice of top quark mass.