The Higgs mechanism from the effective theory of the non-minimal gravity action

Abstract: The spontaneous symmetry breaking for the massless scalar field naturally arises from the framework of the effective theory (the non-minimal coupling of gravity to a scalar field). A magic key ingredient is to add the large vacuum energy density, contributing to the cosmological constant, to the Lagrangian density. By applying this modified spontaneous symmetry breaking with the gauge theory (called modified Higgs mechanism), the inflation physics and the electroweak phase transition can be generated from the same framework. However, this comes with the huge price-the large cosmological constant which is known as the dark energy problem. The possible solution of this issue is also discussed.