Critical Behavior in the Electroweak Phase Transition

Abstract

We examine the behavior of the standard-model electroweak phase transition in the early Universe. We argue that close to the critical temperature it is possible to estimate the {\it effective} infrared corrections to the 1-loop potential using well known $\epsilon$-expansion results from the theory of critical phenomena in 3 spatial dimensions. The theory with the $\epsilon$-corrected potential exhibits much larger fluctuations in the spatial correlations of the order parameter, considerably weakening the strength of the transition.

26 pages

References in corpus (5)

• The Effective Potential and First-Order Phase Transitions: Beyond Leading Order
• Towards the Theory of Cosmological Phase Transitions
• Phase Transition Temperatures at Next-to-Leading Order
• On the phase transition in the scalar theory
• Thermal Fluctuations and Validity of the 1-Loop Effective Potential

Cited by in corpus (25)

• Non-Perturbative Renormalization Flow in Quantum Field Theory and Statistical Physics
• Electroweak Baryogenesis
• Electroweak Baryon Number Non-Conservation in the Early Universe and in High Energy Collisions
• Microphysical Approach to Nonequilibrium Dynamics of Quantum Fields
• Finite Temperature Effective Potential to Order $g^4,\la^2$ and the Electroweak Phase Transition
• A Consistent Calculation of Bubble-Nucleation Rates
• A Hierarchy of Effective Field Theories of Hot Electroweak Matter
• The $\epsilon$-expansion and the electroweak phase transition
• Dynamics of Weak First Order Phase Transitions
• The Electroweak Phase Transition through the Renormalization Group
• Metastability in Two Dimensions and the Effective Potential
• Effective Scalar Field Theory for the Electroweak Phase Transition
• Bubble-nucleation rates for radiatively induced first-order phase transitions
• Finite Temperature Reduction of the SU(2) Higgs-Model with Complete Static Background
• Exact CTP Renormalization Group Equation for the Coarse Grained Effective Action
• Testing nucleation theory in two dimensions
• Are oscillons present during a first order electroweak phase transition?
• Effects of thermal fluctuations on thermal inflation
• Do subcritical bubbles hinder first order phase transition?
• Constraining Non-minimal Dark Sector Scenarios with the COHERENT Neutrino Scattering Data
• Coarse-Grained Fluctuation Probabilities in the Standard Model and Subcritical Bubbles
• Reply to Comment on ``Dynamics of Weak First Order Phase Transitions''
• Inhomogeneous Field Configurations and the Electroweak Phase Transition
• Dimensional Reduction, Hard Thermal Loops and the Renormalization Group
• An analytic study of the tricritical line in the U(Nf)xU(Nf) sigma model