Numerical Simulations and the Strength of the Electroweak Phase Transition

Numerical simulations are performed to study the finite temperature phase transition in the SU(2) Higgs model on the lattice. The strength of the first order phase transition is investigated by determining the latent heat and the interface tension on $L_t=2$ lattices. The values of the Higgs boson mass presently chosen are below 50 GeV. Our results are in qualitative agreement with two-loop resummed perturbation theory.Comment: (Only a few minor changes compared to the original version.) 9 pages and 2 figures, DESY-94-08

Numerical tests of the electroweak phase transition and thermodynamics of the electroweak plasma

The finite temperature phase transition in the SU(2) Higgs model at a Higgs boson mass $M_H \simeq 34$ GeV is studied in numerical simulations on four-dimensional lattices with time-like extensions up to $L_t=5$. The effects of the finite volume and finite lattice spacing on masses and couplings are studied in detail. The errors due to uncertainties in the critical hopping parameter are estimated. The thermodynamics of the electroweak plasma near the phase transition is investigated by determining the relation between energy density and pressure.Comment: latex2e, 32 pages, 11 figures with epsfig; A few comments and a new table are adde

Symmetry Restoration in Hot SUSY

It is by now well known that symmetries may be broken at high temperature. However,in renormalizable supersymmetric theories any internal symmetry gets always restored. In nonrenormalizable theories the situation is far less simple. We review here some recent work which seems to indicate that renormalizability is not essential for the restoration of internal symmetries in supersymmetry.Comment: 8 pages, revtex, no figures. Based on the talk given by G. Senjanovic at SUSY96, University of Maryland, 1996. To appear in the Proceeding

On the scaling of the electroweak interface tension at finite temperature

We determine the interface tension of the finite-temperature electroweak phase transition in a numerical investigation of the SU(2)--Higgs model on a four-dimensional lattice with temporal extension $L_t=3$. In this simulation the chosen parameters correspond to a Higgs boson mass of about 16 GeV. As a result the interface tension shows only small scaling violations in comparison with previous studies for $L_t=2$ lattices. We also report on some experiences with autocorrelations in the applied Monte Carlo simulations of two-phase systems.Comment: 10 pages, latex2e, 7 Postscript figures, uses packages epsfig and amssym

Plasma polarization in high gravity astrophysical objects

Macroscopic plasma polarization, which is created by gravitation and other mass-acting (inertial) forces in massive astrophysical objects is under discussion. Non-ideality effect due to strong Coulomb interaction of charged particles is introduced into consideration as a new source of such polarization. Simplified situation of totally equilibrium isothermal star without relativistic effects and influence of magnetic field is considered. The study is based on variational approach combined with "local density approximation". It leads to two local forms of thermodynamic equilibrium conditions: constancy for generalized (electro)chemical potentials and/or conditions of equilibrium for the forces acting on each charged specie. New "non-ideality potential" and "non-ideality force" appear naturally in this consideration. Hypothetical sequences of gravitational, inertial and non-ideality polarization on thermo- and hydrodynamics of massive astrophysical objects are under discussion.Comment: 6 pages, no figures, 35 refs, Int. Conference "Physics of Non-Ideal Plasmas" (PNP-13), Chernogolovka, September 2009, Russi

A Lattice Monte Carlo Study of the Hot Electroweak Phase Transition

We study the finite temperature electroweak phase transition with lattice perturbation theory and Monte Carlo techniques. Dimensional reduction is used to approximate the full four-dimensional SU(2) + a fundamental doublet Higgs theory by an effective three-dimensional SU(2) + adjoint Higgs + fundamental Higgs theory with coefficients depending on temperature via screening masses and mass counterterms. Fermions contribute to the effective theory only via the $N_F$ and $m_{\rm top}$ dependence of the coefficients. For sufficiently small lattices ($N^3 < 30^3$ for $m_H$ = 35 GeV) the study of the one-loop lattice effective potential shows the existence of the {\em second} order phase transition even for the small Higgs masses. At the same time, a clear signal of a {\em first order} phase transition is seen on the lattice simulations with a transition temperature close to but less than the value determined from the perturbative calculations. This indicates that the dynamics of the first order electroweak phase transition depends strongly on non-perturbative effects and is not exclusively related to the so-called $\phi^3$ term in the effective potential.Comment: 15 pages, use latex+epsfig, includes 6 ps-figures, CERN-TH.6901/9

Kinetic energy density functionals from the Airy gas, with an application to the atomization kinetic energies of molecules

We construct and study several semilocal density functional approximations for the positive Kohn-Sham kinetic energy density. These functionals fit the kinetic energy density of the Airy gas and they can be accurate for integrated kinetic energies of atoms, molecules, jellium clusters and jellium surfaces. We find that these functionals are the most accurate ones for atomization kinetic energies of molecules and for fragmentation of jellium clusters. We also report that local and semilocal kinetic energy functionals can show "binding" when the density of a spin unrestricted Kohn-Sham calculation is used.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

The electroweak phase transition at mH≃80m_H \simeq 80 GeV from Lt=2L_t=2 lattices

We study the finite-temperature electroweak phase transition by numerical simulations of the four-dimensional SU(2)-Higgs model on anisotropic lattices with temporal extension $L_t=2$. The physically interesting parameter region of Higgs masses near 80 GeV is reached, and recent results on some thermodynamic quantities are presented.Comment: Poster presented by J. Heitger at LATTICE97, 3 pages, latex2e, 4 Postscript figures, uses packages epsfig and espcrc

On supersymmetry at high temperature

While it is possible to find examples of field theories with a spontaneously broken symmetry at high temperature, in renormalizable supersymmetric models any internal symmetry gets always restored. Recently, a counterexample was suggested in the context of nonrenormalizable supersymmetric theories. We show that non negligible higher loop effects actually restore the symmetry, without compromising the validity of perturbation theory. We give some arguments as to why the proposed mechanism should not work in general.Comment: Latex, 8 pages, one figur

CP Violation and the Baryonic Asymmetry of the Universe

The physics of electroweak baryogenesis is described with the aim of making the essentials clear to non-experts. Several models for the source of the necessary CP violation are discussed: CKM phases as in the minimal standard model, general two higgs doublet models, the supersymmetric standard model, $Z$ condensates, and the singlet majoron model. In a more technical section, a strategy is introduced for consistently treating quark dynamics in the neighborhood of the bubble wall, where both local and non-local interactions are important. This provides a method for deciding whether gluonic corrections wash out the elecroweak contribution to the baryonic asymmetry in the minimal standard model.Comment: latex, 42pp, no figs. Invited talk at Trends in Astroparticle Physics, Stockholm, Sept 1994