GUT Scalar Potentials for Higgs Inflation

Abstract: We have investigated a number of GUT models for the possibility that their Higgs fields might be responsible for inflation in the early universe. In addition to models having an intrinsic Planck mass parameter, we have entertained classically scale invariant models in which the Planck scale itself as well as the GUT scale is induced by spontaneous gauge symmetry breaking. We found that in a non-supersymmetric SU(5) with the usual adjoint Higgs, but with large non-minimal coupling to the curvature, there are flat directions that might lead to inflation. Interestingly, the one of lowest energy breaks into SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1), as suggested by gauge coupling unification. Further, we show that this flat direction is stable against small fluctuations in other directions. We attempted to extend this to supersymmetric GUTS, both global and supergravity, but did not succeed in finding an acceptable model of this type. As is often the case, such models suffered either from a negative vacuum energy or from tachyonic modes. We also considered a variant of an "inverted hierarchy" model in which the GUT scale is set by dimensional transmutation, but were unable to find a phenomenologically acceptable model.