Electroweak Naturalness: the relaxing way
Nayara Fonseca (DESY Hamburg)

The relaxion models propose a new idea to explain the smallness of the Higgs mass. They rely on the scanning of the Higgs mass parameter by a new field, the relaxion, and a back-reaction mechanism that is triggered when the Higgs vacuum expectation value has reached the size of the electroweak scale, making the relaxion evolution cease. In the usual relaxion model the scanning happens during an inflationary period. Here we explore the cosmological consequences if the relaxation happens independently of inflation. In this scenario, the stopping mechanism is provided by particle production. The stopping barriers of the periodic potential are large and Higgs-independent, which facilitates the model-building and can make the relaxion heavier than in the usual case.