29 research outputs found
Comments on the Electroweak Phase Transition
We report on an investigation of various problems related to the theory of
the electroweak phase transition. This includes a determination of the nature
of the phase transition, a discussion of the possible role of higher order
radiative corrections and the theory of the formation and evolution of the
bubbles of the new phase. We find in particular that no dangerous linear terms
appear in the effective potential. However, the strength of the first order
phase transition is 2/3 times less than what follows from the one-loop
approximation. This rules out baryogenesis in the minimal version of the
electroweak theory.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures (not included
Topological Defects as Seeds for Eternal Inflation
We investigate the global structure of inflationary universe both by
analytical methods and by computer simulations of stochastic processes in the
early Universe. We show that the global structure of the universe depends
crucially on the mechanism of inflation. In the simplest models of chaotic
inflation the Universe looks like a sea of thermalized phase surrounding
permanently self-reproducing inflationary domains. In the theories where
inflation occurs near a local extremum of the effective potential corresponding
to a metastable state, the Universe looks like de Sitter space surrounding
islands of thermalized phase. A similar picture appears even if the state is unstable but the effective potential has a discrete symmetry . In this case the Universe becomes divided into domains containing
different phases. These domains will be separated from each other by domain
walls. However, unlike ordinary domain walls, these domain walls will inflate,
and their thickness will exponentially grow. In the theories with continuous
symmetries inflation generates exponentially expanding strings and monopoles
surrounded by thermalized phase. Inflating topological defects will be stable,
and they will unceasingly produce new inflating topological defects. This means
that topological defects may play a role of indestructible seeds for eternal
inflation.Comment: 21 pages, 17 figures (not included), Stanford University preprint
SU--ITP--94--
Towards the Theory of Cosmological Phase Transitions
We discuss recent progress (and controversies) in the theory of finite
temperature phase transitions. This includes the structure of the effective
potential at a finite temperature, the infrared problem in quantum statistics
of gauge fields, the theory of formation of critical and subcritical bubbles
and the theory of bubble wall propagation.Comment: 50 p
From the Big Bang Theory to the Theory of a Stationary Universe
We consider chaotic inflation in the theories with the effective potentials
phi^n and e^{\alpha\phi}. In such theories inflationary domains containing
sufficiently large and homogeneous scalar field \phi permanently produce new
inflationary domains of a similar type. We show that under certain conditions
this process of the self-reproduction of the Universe can be described by a
stationary distribution of probability, which means that the fraction of the
physical volume of the Universe in a state with given properties (with given
values of fields, with a given density of matter, etc.) does not depend on
time, both at the stage of inflation and after it. This represents a strong
deviation of inflationary cosmology from the standard Big Bang paradigm. We
compare our approach with other approaches to quantum cosmology, and illustrate
some of the general conclusions mentioned above with the results of a computer
simulation of stochastic processes in the inflationary Universe.Comment: No changes to the file, but original figures are included. They
substantially help to understand this paper, as well as eternal inflation in
general, and what is now called the "multiverse" and the "string theory
landscape." High quality figures can be found at
http://www.stanford.edu/~alinde/LLMbigfigs
Late Reheating, Hadronic Jets and Baryogenesis
If inflaton couples very weakly to ordinary matter the reheating temperature
of the universe can be lower than the electroweak scale. In this letter we show
that the late reheating occurs in a highly non-uniform way, within narrow areas
along the jets produced by ordinary particles originated from inflaton decays.
Depending on inflaton mass and decay constant, the initial temperature inside
the lumps of the overheated plasma may be large enough to trigger the
unsuppressed sphaleron processes with baryon number non-conservation, allowing
for efficient local electroweak baryogenesis.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, revtex
Finite Temperature Effective Potential for Gauge Models in de Sitter Space
The one-loop effective potential for gauge models in static de Sitter space
at finite temperatures is computed by means of the --function method. We
found a simple relation which links the effective potentials of gauge and
scalar fields at all temperatures.
In the de Sitter invariant and zero-temperature states the potential for the
scalar electrodynamics is explicitly obtained, and its properties in these two
vacua are compared. In this theory the two states are shown to behave similarly
in the regimes of very large and very small radii a of the background space.
For the gauge symmetry broken in the flat limit () there is a
critical value of a for which the symmetry is restored in both quantum states.
Moreover, the phase transitions which occur at large or at small a are of the
first or of the second order, respectively, regardless the vacuum considered.
The analytical and numerical analysis of the critical parameters of the above
theory is performed. We also established a class of models for which the kind
of phase transition occurring depends on the choice of the vacuum.Comment: 23 pages, LaTeX, 5 figure.ep
Possibility of spontaneous parity violation in hot QCD
We suggest that for QCD in the limit of a large number of colors, N, the
axial U(1) symmetry of massless quarks is effectively restored at the
deconfining=chiral phase transition. If the deconfining transition is of second
order, then the chiral transition is weakly first order. In this case,
metastable states in which parity is spontaneously broken appear at
temperatures below the phase transition. The production of these metastable
states would have dramatic signatures, including enhanced production of eta and
eta' mesons, which can decay through parity violating decay processes such as
eta -> pi^0 pi^0, and global parity odd asymmetries for charged pions. Using a
nonlinear sigma model, in QCD these metastable states only appear rather near
the phase transition.Comment: 4 pages, REVTe
Covariant derivative expansion of fermionic effective action at high temperatures
We derive the fermionic contribution to the 1-loop effective action for A_4
and A_i fields at high temperatures, assuming that gluon fields are slowly
varying but allowing for an arbitrary amplitude of A_4.Comment: RevTex 4, 11 pages, 3 figures. Version 2: Typos corrected; magnetic
fields restricted to parallel sector. Version accepted for publication in PR