Lattice study of the critical bubble in $\mathrm{SU}(8)$ deconfinement transition

Abstract

Strongly coupled theories are of phenomenological interest, for example as dark matter candidates. Theories that can undergo first order thermal phase transitions are particularly appealing as potential sources of a stochastic gravitational wave background. Determining the expected gravitational wave signal from a first order phase transition requires accurate information on the bubble nucleation rate, but thus far for strongly coupled models these have relied on semiclassical methods. As a first step towards determining the nucleation rate, in this paper we study the confinement-deconfinement phase transition in a 4D SU(8) pure gauge model, using multicanonical Monte Carlo. Resolving the critical bubble for the first time in a pure Yang-Mills model, we determine the critical bubble probability and compare it to results from thin wall calculations. We also compare the effectiveness of different lattice pseudo-order parameters at resolving the condensation transition between the metastable phase and critical bubble branch, and point out the choice of order parameter is crucial to accurately resolve the critical configurations.

13 pages, 9 figures, updated to match with published version

References in corpus (14)

• The order of the quantum chromodynamics transition predicted by the standard model of particle physics
• The Sphaleron Rate in the Minimal Standard Model
• Cosmological phase transitions: from perturbative particle physics to gravitational waves
• Testing the dark SU(N) Yang-Mills theory Confined Landscape: From the Lattice to Gravitational Waves
• Echo of the Dark: gravitational waves from dark SU(3) Yang-Mills theory
• The Sphaleron Rate through the Electroweak Cross-over
• First-order electroweak phase transitions: a nonperturbative update
• The Sphaleron Rate from 4D Euclidean Lattices
• A nonperturbative test of nucleation calculations for strong phase transitions
• Non-perturbative determination of the sphaleron rate for first-order phase transitions
• Confined-deconfined interface tension and latent heat in SU(N) gauge theory
• Thermal evolution of dark matter and gravitational-wave production in the early universe from a symplectic glueball model
• Prediction for Maximum Supercooling in SU(N) Confinement Transition
• Gravitational Waves from Confinement in $SU(N)$ Yang-Mills Theory