Properties of symmetry restoration in the electroweak vacuum in very high magnetic fields

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the electroweak vacuum behaves under very high magnetic fields, focusing on the properties and critical points of the superconducting phase transition.

Contribution

It determines the upper critical magnetic field for the electroweak vacuum and calculates the vacuum condensates near this critical point.

Findings

Identification of the critical magnetic field value

Calculation of vacuum condensates near the critical field

Insights into the superconducting phase transition in electroweak theory

Abstract

We discuss properties of the electroweak vacuum as a function of an external magnetic field. The interest in these properties arises due to possible existence of the electromagnetically superconducting phase of QCD in the background of a sufficiently strong magnetic field. In the electroweak theory, a superconducting vacuum exists for a well defined range of magnetic background fields, and the interest of the current paper is the behaviour near the upper critical magnetic field. We determine this critical field and calculate the vacuum condensates to leading order.