Testing the electroweak phase transition in scalar extension models at lepton colliders

We study the electroweak phase transition in three scalar extension models beyond the Standard Model.Assuming new scalars are decoupled at some heavy scale, we use the covariant derivative expansion method to derive all of the dimension-6 effective operators, whose coefficients are highly correlated in a specific model. We provide bounds to the complete set of dimension-6 operators by including the electroweak precision test and recent Higgs measurements. We find that the parameter space of strong first-order phase transitions(induced by the |H|~6 operator)can be probed extensively in Zh production at future electron-positron colliders.     

Effective field theory and electroweak processes in nuclei

The accurate theoretical treatment of low-energy electroweak processes in lightest nuclei is of great current importance not only in the context of nuclear physics per se but also from the astrophysical and particle-physics viewpoints. I give a brief survey of the recent remarkable progress in this domain.     

Effective potentials in the Lifshitz scalar field theory

We study the one-loop effective potentials of the four-dimensional Lifshitz scalar field theory with the particular anisotropic scaling z=2, and the mass and the coupling constants renormalization are performed whereas the finite counterterm is just needed for the highest order of the coupling because of the mild UV divergence. Finally, we investigate whether the critical temperature for the symmetry breaking can exist or not in this approximation.     

The phase transition in electroweak theory at finite density

The effective potential for electroweak theory at finite density and temperature is studied with the inclusion of radiative corrections. Supercooling and reheating at the phase transition to the ordered phase are discussed.     

Thermal equilibrium during the electroweak phase transition

The perturbative effective potential for the Standard Model develops a barrier, at temperatures around the electroweak scale, which separates the minimum at zero field and a deeper non-zero minimum. This could create out of equilibrium conditions by inducing the localization of the Higgs field in a metastable state around zero. In this picture vacuum decay would occur through bubble nucleation. I show that there is an upper bound on the Higgs mass for the above scenario to be realized. The barrier must be high enough to prevent thermal fluctuations of the Higgs expectation value from establishing thermal equilibrium between the two minima. The upper bound is estimated to be lower than the experimental lower limit. This also imposes constraints on extensions of the Standard Model constructed in order to generate a strongly first order phase transition.     

SUSY variants of the electroweak phase transition

The MSSM with a light right-handed stop and supersymmetric models with a singlet whose vev is comparable to that of the Higgs allow for a strongly first-order electroweak phase transition even for a mass of the lightest Higgs around 100 GeV. After a short review of the standard model situation we discuss these supersymmetric models. We also compare perturbative calculations based on the dimensionally reduced 3-dimensional action with lattice results and present an analytic procedure based on an analogue of the stochastic vacuum model of QCD to estimate the nonperturbative contributions. Received: 26 September 1998 / Revised version: 2 June 1999 / Published online: 15 July 1999     

Phase transition of a scalar field theory at high temperatures

At high temperatures a four dimensional field theory is reduced to a three dimensional field theory. In this letter we consider the φ⁴ theory whose parameters are chosen so that a thermal phase transition occurs at a high temperature. Using the known properties of the three dimensional theory, we derive a non-trivial correction to the critical temperature.     

Numerical tests of the electroweak phase transition and thermodynamics of the electroweak plasma

The finite temperature phase transition in the SU(2) Higgs model at a Higgs boson mass M_H ≅ 34 GeV is studied in numerical simulations on four-dimensional lattices with time-like extensions up to L_t = 5. The effects of the finite volume and finite lattice spacing on masses and couplings are studied in detail. The errors due to uncertainties in the critical hopping parameter are estimated. The thermodynamics of the electroweak plasma near the phase transition is investigated by determining the relation between energy density and pressure.