Abstract
After reviewing the calculation of the Standard Model one-loop effective potential in a class of linear gauges, we discuss the physical observables entering the vacuum stability analysis. While the electroweak-vacuum-stability bound on the Higgs boson mass can be formally proven to be gauge independent, the field value at which the effective potential turns negative (the so-called instability scale) is a gauge dependent quantity. By varying the gauge-fixing scheme and the gauge-fixing parameters in their perturbative domain, we find an irreducible theoretical uncertainty of at least two orders of magnitude on the scale at which the Standard Model vacuum becomes unstable.
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Di Luzio, L., Mihaila, L. On the gauge dependence of the Standard Model vacuum instability scale. J. High Energ. Phys. 2014, 79 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP06(2014)079
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP06(2014)079