Stability, Higgs Boson Mass, and New Physics

Assuming that the particle with mass similar to 126 GeV discovered at LHC is the standard model Higgs boson, we find that the stability of the electroweak (EW) vacuum strongly depends on new physics interaction at the Planck scale M-P, despite of the fact that they are higher-dimensional interactions, apparently suppressed by inverse powers of M-P. In particular, for the present experimental values of the top and Higgs boson masses, if tau is the lifetime of the EW vacuum, new physics can turn tau from tau >> T-U to tau << T-U, where T-U is the age of the Universe, thus, weakening the conclusions of the so called metastability scenario.