Gravitational perturbations of the Higgs field

The standard Higgs mechanism for electroweak symmetry breaking predicts, apart from the existence of a new scalar boson, the presence of a constant vacuum expectation value (VEV) of the Higgs field. The Higgs VEV, being determined by the effective potential, can however acquire space-time fluctuations from loop effects in inhomogeneous metric backgrounds. In this talk, we will present recent results on the determination of the finite (non-local) part of the one-loop effective potential in weak, slowly varying gravitational fields. Potential astrophysical and cosmological signatures will also be discussed.