Chaotic thermalization in Yang-Mills-Higgs theory on a spacial lattice

Abstract

We analyze the Hamiltonian time evolution of classical SU(2) Yang-Mills-Higgs theory with a fundamental Higgs doublet on a spacial lattice. In particular, we study energy transfer and equilibration processes among the gauge and Higgs sectors, calculate the maximal Lyapunov exponents under randomized initial conditions in the weak-coupling regime, where one expects them to be related to the high-temperature plasmon damping rate, and investigate their energy and coupling dependence. We further examine finite-time and finite-size errors, study the impact of the Higgs fields on the instability of constant non-Abelian magnetic fields, and comment on the implications of our results for the thermalization properties of hot gauge fields in the presence of matter.

33 pages, 16 figures (vs2 contains, as the published version, an additional section on potential implications of chaotic thermalization for nonequilibrium processes in the early Universe and in the aftermath of ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions.)

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