Originally posted by sonhouse
http://phys.org/news/2014-08-higgs-boson-earliest-expansion-universe.html
We'll see what comes out of this proposal.
I'm not sure I believe this. The inflaton is the hypothetical particle responsible for inflation. If the electro-weak Higgs, the one they've seen at LHC, was the inflaton, then one would expect inflation to occur during the electro-weak symmetry breaking phase transition. However electo-weak symmetry breaking should have happened after inflation is believed to have ended. So I find it more likely that a grand unification Higgs would be the inflaton.