The Higgs Particle Could Disrupt Physics Across the Universe—Here’s Why It Hasn’t

The elusive Higgs boson holds the potential to destabilize the laws of physics as we know them, yet it hasn’t. This raises profound questions about the universe’s nature.

Despite the universe’s 13.7 billion years of stability, recent experiments suggest it’s on the brink of a dangerous shift, all due to the Higgs boson’s instability. In new research soon to be published in *Physical Letters B*, my colleagues and I demonstrate that certain early-universe models involving light primordial black holes are likely incorrect because they would have already triggered a catastrophic Higgs boson event.

The Higgs boson is crucial for the mass and interactions of all known particles, as it interacts with the Higgs field—a uniform field across the universe. This uniformity has allowed us to understand physics consistently over time. However, the Higgs field might not be in its lowest energy state, meaning it could theoretically transition to a lower state, which would drastically alter the laws of physics in a phase transition, similar to how water turns to vapor.

Recent measurements from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider suggest such an event is possible but unlikely for billions of years. This leads physicists to describe the universe as “meta-stable” rather than unstable.

For a phase transition to occur, external energy sources like strong gravitational fields or hot plasma are needed. Our research found that primordial black holes, tiny black holes formed in the early universe, could have provided the conditions for such transitions. Yet, the fact that we’re still here implies these black holes likely never existed, or if they did, there’s something about the Higgs boson we still don’t understand—possibly involving new particles or forces.

This leaves us with much to uncover about the universe on both the smallest and largest scales.