Strong electroweak phase transitions in the Standard Model with a singlet

By J. Espinosa, T. Konstandin, F. Riva. 2011

400 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract It is well known that the electroweak phase transition (EWPhT) in extensions of the Standard Model with one real scalar singlet can be first-order for realistic values of the Higgs mass. We revisit this scenario with the most general renormalizable scalar potential systematically identifying all regions in parameter space that develop, due to tree-level dynamics, a potential barrier at the critical temperature that is strong enough to avoid sphaleron wash-out of the baryon asymmetry. Such strong EWPhTs allow for a simple mean-field approximation and an analytic treatment of the free-energy that leads to very good theoretical control and understanding of the different mechanisms that can make the transition strong. We identify a new realization of such mechanism, based on a flat direction developing at the critical temperature, which could operate in other models. Finally, we discuss in detail some special cases of the model performing a numerical calculation of the one-loop free-energy that improves over the mean-field approximation and confirms the analytical expectations.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2cc5438f73211142fa2953da89cdd3203aee8a5c

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Citations in the corpus

Model-independent energy budget of cosmological first-order phase transitions—A sound argument to go beyond the bag model (2020, methodology): “The second model we study is a model with a two-step phase transition [45].”
On the maximal strength of a first-order electroweak phase transition and its gravitational wave signal (2018, background): “The subsequent electroweak phase transition (0, x0) → (v, 0) is then in general strongly firstorder, as the two minima will be separated by a tree-level potential barrier for some range of temperatures below Ts [94].”
Composite scalar dark matter (2012, background): “It has been pointed out [51, 52] that a real singlet with the parity of eq.”
Higgs Physics at the HL-LHC and HE-LHC (2019, background): “Perhaps, the simplest illustration of this potential is the extension of the SM scalar sector with a single real singlet scalar [395, 396, 397, 398, 399, 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 333, 406], the “xSM” [407] (for analogous studies with a complex singlet, see [408, 409]).”
Detecting gravitational waves from cosmological phase transitions with LISA: an update (2019, background): “[73] for an indepth discussion of these parametrizations).”
Testing electroweak baryogenesis with future colliders (2014, background): “This scenario of adding a singlet with a Z2 symmetry to the SM has been well-studied in a variety of different contexts [50–56].”
Higgs Boson studies at future particle colliders (2019, background): “ce of new symmetries T 6=0 and T =0 are directly connected and the Higgs trilinear is expected to be O(1) off its SM prediction (see e.g. [123]). On the other hand in the presence of extra symmetries [124] there could be a further phase separation between T 6=0 and T =0 in which case deviations can ”
Science with the space-based interferometer eLISA. II: gravitational waves from cosmological phase transitions (2015, background): “We will restrict ourselves to the case where the new gauge singlet scalar, S, is charged under a discrete Z2 symmetry and has no VEV at zero temperature [63].”