The Finite Temperature Phase Transition in the Lattice SU(2)-Higgs Model

TL;DR

This paper investigates the finite temperature phase transition in the lattice SU(2)-Higgs model using Monte Carlo simulations, revealing a stronger first order transition than perturbative predictions due to non-perturbative effects.

Contribution

It applies dimensional reduction and lattice Monte Carlo techniques to analyze the phase transition, providing new insights into non-perturbative dynamics in the SU(2)-Higgs model.

Findings

Stronger first order transition observed than perturbation theory predicts.

Transition dynamics are heavily influenced by non-perturbative effects.

Results obtained for Higgs masses of 35 and 80 GeV.

Abstract

We study the finite temperature transition of SU(2)-Higgs model with lattice Monte Carlo techniques. We use dimensional reduction to transform the original 4-dimensional SU(2)-gauge + fundamental Higgs theory to an effective 3-dimensional SU(2) + adjoint Higgs + fundamental Higgs model. The simulations were performed with Higgs masses of 35 and 80 GeV; in both cases we observe a stronger first order transition than the perturbation theory predicts, indicating that the dynamics of the transition strongly depend on non-perturbative effects.