Gravity and the Higgs boson mass

Abstract

According to usual calculations in quantum field theory, both in flat and curved spacetime, the mass $m^2$ of a scalar particle is quadratically sensitive to the ultimate scale of the theory, the UV physical cutoff $\Lambda$. In the present work, paying attention to the path integral measure and to the way $\Lambda$ is introduced, we calculate the one-loop effective action $\Gamma^{1l}$ for a scalar field on a non-trivial gravitational background. We find that $m^2$ presents only a (mild) logarithmic sensitivity to $\Lambda$. This is obtained without resorting to a supersymmetric embedding of the theory, nor to regularization schemes (as dimensional or zeta-function regularization) where power-like divergences are absent by construction. In view of the results of the present work, we finally speculate on the way the Minkowski limit should be approached.