Lattice Calculation of the Decay of Primordial Higgs Condensate

Abstract

We study the resonant decay of the primordial Standard Model Higgs condensate after inflation into $SU(2)$ gauge bosons on the lattice. We find that the non-Abelian interactions between the gauge bosons quickly extend the momentum distribution towards high values, efficiently destroying the condensate after the onset of backreaction. For the inflationary scale $H=10^8$ GeV, we find that 90% of the Higgs condensate has decayed after $n\sim 10$ oscillation cycles. This differs significantly from the Abelian case where, given the same coupling strengths, most of the condensate would persist after the resonance.

Comments: 16 pages, 6 figures. Minor edits to match published version