PT-symmetric interpretation of unstable effective potentials

Abstract

The conventional interpretation of the one-loop effective potentials of the Higgs field in the Standard Model and the gravitino condensate in dynamically broken supergravity is that these theories are unstable at large field values. A PT-symmetric reinterpretation of these models at a quantum-mechanical level eliminates these instabilities and suggests that these instabilities may also be tamed at the quantum-field-theory level.