High Temperature Field Theory Beyond Perturbation Theory

TL;DR

This paper discusses the nonperturbative nature of the high temperature electroweak phase transition, emphasizing the role of strong interactions and confinement effects that cannot be captured by perturbative methods, especially for realistic Higgs masses.

Contribution

It highlights the importance of nonperturbative techniques in understanding the electroweak phase transition at high temperatures for realistic Higgs boson masses.

Findings

The symmetric phase is governed by a strongly interacting SU(2) gauge theory.

Masses of excitations are set by the high temperature confinement scale (~0.2 T).

The phase transition can be first order or a crossover depending on the Higgs mass.

Abstract

For realistic values of the Higgs boson mass the high temperature electroweak phase transition cannot be described perturbatively. The symmetric phase is governed by a strongly interacting $SU(2)$ gauge theory. Typical masses of excitations and scales of condensates are set by the ``high temperature confinement scale'' $\approx 0.2\ T$. For a Higgs boson mass around 100 GeV or above all aspects of the phase transition are highly nonperturbative. Near the critical temperature strong electroweak interactions are a dominant feature also in the phase with spontaneous symmetry breaking. Depending on the value of the Higgs boson mass the transition may be a first order phase transition or an analytical crossover.