(keynote speaker)
The Higgs field and the Nature of Gravity
Among the many models trying to explain the accelerated phase of expansion in the early universe, Higgs-Inflation stands out as a minimal realization not requiring additional degrees of freedom beyond the Standard Model content. However, different incarnations of gravity, such as the well known metric and Palatini formulations, give rise to different inflationary predictions. I will discuss how Higgs inflation can be embedded in Einstein-Cartan gravity, focusing on the evolution of the Higgs field after inflation and the potential formation of oscillon configurations. The presence of these structures can lead to a sizable gravitational wave background and a prolonged phase of matter domination, which can itself affect the minimal duration of the inflationary phase as compared to the metric and Palatini formulations.