Symmetry restoration at finite temperature with weak magnetic fields

TL;DR

This paper investigates how weak magnetic fields influence the electroweak phase transition at finite temperature, showing that such fields can strengthen the first-order nature of the transition.

Contribution

It provides a detailed calculation of the finite temperature effective potential including magnetic field effects, highlighting the impact on phase transition strength.

Findings

Magnetic fields strengthen the first-order phase transition.

The effective potential depends on gauge parameters.

Ring diagrams are included in the potential calculation.

Abstract

We study symmetry restoration at finite temperature in the standard model during the electroweak phase transition in the presence of a weak magnetic field. We compute the finite temperature effective potential up to the contribution of ring diagrams, using the broken phase degrees of freedom, and keep track of the gauge parameter dependence of the results. We show that under these conditions, the phase transition becomes stronger first order.