The Particle That Could Revolutionize Our Understanding of the Universe.
The theory of cosmic inflation, which proposes that the Universe underwent rapid expansion in its early stages, has provided a solution to the horizon problem and explains the origin of the seeds of structure in the Universe. However, the origin and identity of the inflation field remain unknown, and the theory faces contradictions called instabilities. Physicists are exploring the possibility that the Higgs boson, which gives mass to matter, could be behind inflation, but both theories rely on quantum fluctuations that generate infinities in finite quantities, making a solution elusive.