Do subcritical bubbles hinder first order phase transition?

Abstract

We consider the role played by subcritical bubbles during the electroweak phase transition, estimate their average size, amplitude and formation rate taking into account the crucial role played by thermalization. We also study the influence of subcritical bubbles on the formation of critical bubbles in the thin wall regime and show that, contrary to some recent claims, subcritical bubbles do not affect the nucleation of critical bubbles in an appreciable way. From this fact we conclude that the electroweak baryogenesis scenarios associated with a first order electroweak phase transition still remain an attractive possibility.

12 pages LaTeX

References in corpus (10)

• Progress in Electroweak Baryogenesis
• Towards the Theory of Cosmological Phase Transitions
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• The Electroweak Phase Transition at $m_H\simeq m_W$
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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Numerical approach to the onset of the electroweak phase transition
• Expanding Bubbles in a Thermal Background
• Fluctuations and Bubble Dynamics in First-Order Phase Transitions
• Probability Distribution Function of the Coarse-grained Scalar Field at Finite Temperature