Paweł Olszewski

Higher-order scalar interactions and SM vacuum stability

A bstractInvestigation of the structure of the Standard Model effective potential at very large field strengths opens a window towards new phenomena and can reveal properties of the UV completion of the SM. The map of the lifetimes of the vacua of the SM enhanced by nonrenormalizable scalar couplings has been compiled to show how new interactions modify stability of the electroweak vacuum. Whereas it is possible to stabilize the SM by adding Planck scale suppressed interactions and taking into account running of the new couplings, the generic effect is shortening the lifetime and hence further destabilisation of the SM electroweak vacuum. These findings have been illustrated with phase diagrams of modified SM-like models. It has been demonstrated that stabilisation can be achieved by lowering the suppression scale of higher order operators while picking up such combinations of new couplings, which do not deepen the new minima of the potential. Our results show the dependence of the lifetime of the electroweak minimum on the magnitude of the new couplings, including cases with very small couplings (which means very large effective suppression scale) and couplings vastly different in magnitude (which corresponds to two different suppression scales).

Gauge fixing and renormalization scale independence of tunneling rate in Abelian Higgs model and in the standard model

We explicitly show perturbative gauge fixing independence of the tunneling rate to a stable radiatively induced vacuum in the Abelian Higgs model. We work with a class of

The impact of non-minimally coupled gravity on vacuum stability

{R}_{\ensuremath{\xi}}

Domain walls and gravitational waves in the Standard Model

gauges in the presence of both dimensionless and dimensionful gauge fixing parameters. We show that Nielsen identities survive the inclusion of higher order operators and compute the tunnelling rate to the vacua modified by the nonrenormalizable operators in a gauge invariant manner. We also discuss implications of this method for the complete Standard Model.

Non-minimally coupled gravity and vacuum stability

A bstractWe consider vacuum decay in the presence of a non-minimal coupling to gravity. We extend the usual thin-wall solution to include the non-minimal coupling. We also perform a full numerical study and discuss the validity of the new thin-wall approximation. Implications of a large cosmological constant, whose influence on the geometry boosts the tunneling rate, are discussed. Our results show that the influence of the non-minimal coupling differs significantly between the cases of Minkowski and de Sitter backgrounds. In the latter the decay probability quickly decreases when the coupling grows and in fact the vacuum can be made absolutely stable simply due to introduction of the non-minimal coupling. In the case of Minkowski background the effect is much weaker and the decay rate even increases for small values of the non-minimal coupling.

Standard Model vacuum stability in the presence of gauge invariant nonrenormalizable operators

We study domain walls which can be created in the Standard Model under the assumption that it is valid up to very high energy scales. We focus on domain walls interpolating between the physical electroweak vacuum and the global minimum appearing at very high field strengths. The creation of the network which ends up in the electroweak vacuum percolating through the Universe is not as difficult to obtain as one may expect, although it requires certain tuning of initial conditions. Our numerical simulations confirm that such domain walls would swiftly decay and thus cannot dominate the Universe. We discuss the possibility of detection of gravitational waves produced in this scenario. We have found that for the standard cosmology the energy density of these gravitational waves is too small to be observed in present and planned detectors.

Hints of BSM physics in the SM effective potential

We investigate the properties of vacuum decay taking into account a non-minimal coupling to gravity. We extend the standard thin-wall solution to include the non-minimal coupling and verify its validity by comparison with a full numerical study. We also investigate the implications of a~large cosmological constant whose influence on the geometry boosts the tunneling rate. Our analysis shows that the influence of the non-minimal coupling differs significantly between the cases of Minkowski and deSitter backgrounds.

Domain walls in the extensions of the Standard Model

Analysis of the Standard Model effective potential can reveal certain properties of the UV completion of SM. We discuss the issue of stability of the SM potential after inclusion of new nonrenormalizable interactions. We present the map of lifetimes resulting from different configurations of the new operators. The key result is proof of gauge independence of our results after inclusion of nonrenormalizable operators. We also discuss the consequences of RGE improvement of the potential.

Features of electroweak symmetry breaking in five dimensional SUSY models

Investigation of the structure of the Standard Model effective potential at very large field strengths opens a window towards new phenomena and can reveal properties of the UV completion of the SM. The map of the lifetimes of the vacua of the SM enhanced by nonrenormalizable scalar couplings has been compiled to show how new interactions modify stability of the electroweak vacuum. Whereas it is possible to stabilize the SM by adding Planck scale suppressed interactions and taking into account running of the new couplings, the generic effect is shortening the lifetime and hence further destabilisation of the SM electroweak vacuum. Absolute stability can be achieved by lowering the suppression scale of higher order operators while picking up such combinations of new couplings, which do not generate new deep minima in the potential. We discuss the issue of gauge dependence of the perturbative determination of the tunnelling rate and show how this rate can be made gauge independent at the leading nontrivial order of the RGE improved effective action.

On the vanishing trace anomaly in flat spacetime

Our main interest is the evolution of domain walls of the Higgs field in the early Universe. The aim of this paper is to understand how dynamics of Higgs domain walls could be influenced by yet unknown interactions from beyond the Standard Model. We assume that the Standard Model is valid up to certain, high, energy scale