Higgs potential near-criticality from a de Sitter swampland-like condition

Abstract

Motivated by the recently proposed de Sitter swampland conjecture, a formally same condition imposed instead on the convex and real exact effective potential is contemplated. Compared to the original conjecture, the modified condition admits a broader class of low-energy effective theories such as those with local maxima and/or false de Sitter vacua with some restrictions, as long as there is an anti-de Sitter vacuum. The observed accelerating expansion of the universe might therefore be attributed to a quintessence or a metastable vacuum. The former solution can be simplified and thus better compatible with phenomenological constraints thanks to the convexity of the effective potential. Among the latter class of solutions is found the enthralling possibility that the modified condition is in fact behind the experimentally favoured metastability of the Higgs potential with an instability scale below or around the Planck scale.