Bubble-wall speed with loop corrections

TL;DR

This paper develops a systematic method to calculate one-loop quantum corrections to bubble-wall speed during first-order phase transitions, revealing that these corrections can significantly alter the predicted wall velocity.

Contribution

It introduces a new framework for incorporating quantum loop corrections into bubble-wall dynamics, improving upon traditional derivative expansion methods.

Findings

One-loop corrections decrease the bubble-wall speed.

Effective-potential approximation underestimates full corrections by about a factor of two.

Latent heat can differ from the effective-potential result.

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the dynamics of the nucleating scalar field during the first-order phase transitions by incorporating one-loop corrections of classical fluctuations. We assume that a high-temperature expansion is valid\te where the mass of the scalar field is significantly smaller than the temperature\te so that we can treat the bubble-wall dynamics in a regime where quantum fluctuations can be integrated out. We present a systematic framework for calculating classical loop corrections to the wall speed; contrast our results with traditional methods based on the derivative expansion; show that the latent heat can differ from the effective-potential result; and discuss general hydrodynamic corrections. Finally, we show an application of the presented framework for a simple scalar field model, finding that the one-loop improvement decreases the wall speed and that an effective-potential approximation underestimates full one-loop corrections by about a factor of two.