The electroweak phase transition on orbifolds with gauge-Higgs unification

The electroweak phase transition in GUT inspired $SO(5)\times U(1) \times SU(3)$ gauge-Higgs unification is shown to be weakly first order and occurs at $T = T_c^{\rm EW} \sim 163\,$GeV, which is very similar to the behavior in the standard model in perturbation theory. A new phase appears at higher temperatures. $SU(2)_L \times U(1)_Y$ ($\theta_H=0$) and $SU(2)_R \times U(1)_{Y'}$ ($\theta_H=\pi$) phases become almost degenerate above $T \sim m_{\rm KK}$ where $m_{\rm KK}$ is the Kaluza-Klein mass scale typically around 13$\,$TeV and $\theta_H$ is the Aharonov-Bohm phase along the fifth dimension. The two phases become degenerate at $T = T_c^{\rm LR} \sim m_{\rm KK}$. As the temperature drops in the evolution of the early Universe the $SU(2)_R \times U(1)_{Y'}$ phase becomes unstable. The tunneling rate from the $SU(2)_R \times U(1)_{Y'}$ phase to the $SU(2)_L \times U(1)_Y$ phase becomes sizable and a first-order phase transition takes place at $T=2.5 \sim 2.6\,$TeV. The amount of gravitational waves produced in this left-right phase transition is small, far below the reach of the sensitivity of Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). A detailed analysis of the $SU(2)_R \times U(1)_{Y'}$ phase is also given. It is shown that the $W$ boson, $Z$ boson and photon, with $\theta_H$ varying from 0 to $\pi$, are transformed to gauge bosons in the $SU(2)_R \times U(1)_{Y'}$ phase. Gauge couplings and wave functions of quarks, leptons and dark fermions in the $SU(2)_R \times U(1)_{Y'}$ phase are determined.

A new mechanism through which a net baryon asymmetry could be generated at the electroweak phase transition is discussed. It works efficiently in ``nonminimal'' extensions of the standard model such as occur in supersymmetric theories, where the Higgs sector involves several fields. In these theories it appears capable of producing the observed asymmetry. Conversely, with more detailed calculations this mechanism could be used to put important constraints on nonminimal extensions of the standard model.

We analyze the electroweak phase transition at finite temperature in a model of gauge-Higgs unification where the fermion mass hierarchy including top quark mass, a viable electroweak symmetry breaking and an observed Higgs mass are successfully reproduced. To study the phase transition, we derive the general formula of the 1-loop effective potential at finite temperature by using the $\zeta$ function regularization method. It is remarkable that the functions determining the Kaluza-Klein mass spectrum have only to be necessary in calculations. This potential can be applicable to any higher dimensional theory in flat space where one extra spatial dimension is compactified. Applying to our model of gauge-Higgs unification, the strong first phase transition compatible with 125 GeV Higgs mass is found to happen.

Assuming a double-well bare potential for a self-interacting scalar field, with the Higgs vacuum expectation value, it is shown that non-perturbative quantum corrections naturally lead to ultra-light particles of mass $\simeq10^{-23}$eV, if these non-perturbative effects occur at a time consistent with the Electroweak phase transition. This mechanism could be relevant in the context of Bose Einstein Condensate studies for the description of cold Dark Matter. Given the numerical consistency with the Electroweak transition, an interaction potential for Higgs and Dark Matter fields is proposed, where spontaneous symmetry breaking for the Higgs field leads to the generation of ultra-light particles, in addition to the usual Higgs mechanism. This model also naturally leads to extremely weak interactions between the Higgs and Dark Matter particles.

The significance of the electroweak phase transition is undeniable, and although initially it was believed that it was second order, it is now believed that it is a first-order transition. However, it is not a strong first-order phase transition in the context of the standard model, and the remedy to this issue is to use the Higgs portal and directly couple the Higgs to a hidden scalar sector. This can result in a strong electroweak phase transition, while the couplings to a hidden scalar are constrained by several phenomenological constraints, such as the sphaleron rate criterion and the branching ratio of the Higgs to invisible channels. In this work, we consider the standard singlet extensions of the standard model, including dimension-six non-renormalizable operators that couple a real singlet scalar field with the Higgs doublet. As a result, we examine the effects of those Higgs-singlet couplings on the electroweak phase transition. The effective theory, where the nonrenormalizable couplings originate from, is considered to be active beyond 15 TeV. As we show, the Universe experiences a two-step electroweak phase transition, a primary phase transition in the singlet sector at a high temperature, and then a subsequent first-order phase transition from the singlet vacuum to the electroweak vacuum. The singlet’s phase transition can either be second order or first order, depending on the singlet mass and its couplings to the Higgs. In particular, we show that the dimension-six operator assists in generating a strong electroweak phase transition in regions of the parameter space that were excluded in the previous singlet extensions of the standard model. This is further apparent for low singlet masses mS<mH/2, which are rarely taken into account in the literature due to the invisible branching ratio of the Higgs boson. In some limited cases in the parameter space, the electroweak phase transition is weakened by the presence of the higher order operator. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Effects of bulk mass in gauge–Higgs unification

of large corrections to the T parameter and the coupling of the Z to the bottom quark. We demonstrate that electroweak symmetry breaking may be realized, with proper generation of the top and bottom quark masses for the same region of bulk mass parameters that lead to good agreement with precision electroweak data in the presence of a light Higgs. We compute the Higgs mass and demonstrate that for the range of parameters for which the Higgs boson has Standard Model-like properties, the Higgs mass is naturally in a range that varies between values close to the LEP experimental limit and about 160 GeV. This mass range may be probed at the Tevatron and at the LHC. We analyze the KK spectrum and briey discuss the phenomenology of the light resonances arising in our model.

Confining strings and RG flow at finite temperature are investigated in the (2+1)-dimensional Georgi-Glashow model. This is done in the limit when the electric coupling constant is much larger than the square root of mass of the Higgs field, but much smaller than the vacuum expectation value of this field. The modification of the Debye mass of the dual photon with respect to the case when it is considered to be negligibly small compared to the Higgs mass, is found. Analogous modifications of the potential of monopole densities and string coupling constants are found. At finite temperature, the mass of the Higgs field scales according to a novel RG equation. It is checked that in the limit when the original theory is reduced by the RG flow to the 2D XY model, the so-evolved Higgs mass is still much smaller than the squared electric coupling constant. The SU(3)-theory of confining strings is also discussed within the same approximations.

An analytic treatment of the one Higgs doublet, electroweak phase transition is given. The phase transition is first order, occurs by the nucleation of thin walled bubbles and completes at a temperature where the order parameter, {l angle}{phi}{r angle}{sub T} is significantly smaller than it is when the origin becomes absolutely unstable. The rate of anomalous baryon number violation is an exponentially function of {l angle}{phi}{r angle}{sub T}. In very minimal extensions of the standard model it is quite easy to increase {l angle}{phi}{r angle}{sub T} so that anomalous baryon number violation is suppressed after completion of the phase transition. Hence baryogenesis at the electroweak phase transition is tenable in minimal of the standard model. In some cases additional phase transitions are possible. For a light Higgs boson, when the top quark mass is sufficiently large, the state where the Higgs field has a vacuum expectation value {l angle}{phi}{r angle} = 246 GeV is not the true minimum of the Higgs potential. When this is the case, and when the top quark mass exceeds some critical value, thermal fluctuations in the early universe would have rendered the state {l angle}{phi}{r angle} = 246 GeV unstable. The requirement that the statemore » {l angle}{phi}{r angle} = 246 GeV is sufficiently long lived constrains the masses of the Higgs boson and the top quark. Finally, we consider whether local phase transitions can be induced by heavy particles which act as seeds for deformations in the scalar field.« less

Electroweak baryogenesis: concrete in a SUSY model with a gauge singlet

In the context of the gauge-Higgs unification scenario in a 5-dimensional flat spacetime, we investigate Higgs boson production via gluon fusion and its diphoton decay mode at the LHC. We show that the signal strength of the Higgs diphoton decay mode observed at ATLAS and CMS, which is considerably larger than the Standard Model expectation, can be explained by a simple gauge-Higgs unification model with color-singlet bulk fermions to which a half-periodic boundary condition is assigned. The bulk fermions also play a crucial role in reproducing the observed Higgs boson mass around 125 GeV.

We study the strength of a first-order electroweak phase transition in the Inert Doublet Model (IDM), where particle dark matter (DM) is comprised of the lightest neutral inert Higgs boson. We improve over previous studies in the description and treatment of the finite-temperature effective potential and of the electroweak phase transition. We focus on a set of benchmark models inspired by the key mechanisms in the IDM leading to a viable dark matter particle candidate, and illustrate how to enhance the strength of the electroweak phase transition by adjusting the masses of the yet undiscovered IDM Higgs states. We argue that across a variety of DM masses, obtaining a strong enough first-order phase transition is a generic possibility in the IDM. We find that due to direct dark matter searches and collider constraints, a sufficiently strong transition and a thermal relic density matching the universal DM abundance is possible only in the Higgs funnel regime.

The Gross–Neveu model at finite temperature at next-to-leading order in the 1/ N expansion

The MSSM electroweak phase transition on the lattice

We study $D$-dimensional gauge theory with an extra dimension of a circle at finite temperature. We mainly focus on the expectation value of the gauge field for the direction of the extra dimension, which is the order parameter of the gauge symmetry breaking. We evaluate the effective potential in the one-loop approximation at finite temperature. We show that the vacuum configuration of the theory at finite temperature is determined by a ($D\ensuremath{-}1$)-dimensional gauge theory defined by removing the Euclidean time coordinate as well as all of the fermions from the original $D$-dimensional gauge theory on the circle. It is pointed out that gauge symmetry nonrestoration and/or inverse symmetry breaking can occur at high temperature in a class of gauge theories on circles and that phase transitions (if they occur) are, in general, expected to be first order.