Thomas Konstandin

Strong electroweak phase transitions in the Standard Model with a singlet

Abstract It is well known that the electroweak phase transition (EWPhT) in extensions of the Standard Model with one real scalar singlet can be first-order for realistic values of the Higgs mass. We revisit this scenario with the most general renormalizable scalar potential systematically identifying all regions in parameter space that develop, due to tree-level dynamics, a potential barrier at the critical temperature that is strong enough to avoid sphaleron wash-out of the baryon asymmetry. Such strong EWPhTs allow for a simple mean-field approximation and an analytic treatment of the free-energy that leads to very good theoretical control and understanding of the different mechanisms that can make the transition strong. We identify a new realization of such mechanism, based on a flat direction developing at the critical temperature, which could operate in other models. Finally, we discuss in detail some special cases of the model performing a numerical calculation of the one-loop free-energy that improves over the mean-field approximation and confirms the analytical expectations.

Science with the space-based interferometer eLISA. II: Gravitational waves from cosmological phase transitions

We investigate the potential for the eLISA space-based interferometer to detect the stochastic gravitational wave background produced by strong first-order cosmological phase transitions. We discuss the resulting contributions from bubble collisions, magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, and sound waves to the stochastic background, and estimate the total corresponding signal predicted in gravitational waves. The projected sensitivity of eLISA to cosmological phase transitions is computed in a model-independent way for various detector designs and configurations. By applying these results to several specific models, we demonstrate that eLISA is able to probe many well-motivated scenarios beyond the Standard Model of particle physics predicting strong first-order cosmological phase transitions in the early Universe.

Electroweak Phase Transition and Baryogenesis in the nMSSM

We analyze the nMSSM with CP violation in the singlet sector. We study the static and dynamical properties of the electroweak phase transition. We conclude that electroweak baryogenesis in this model is generic in the sense that if the present limits on the mass spectrum are applied, no severe additional tuning is required to obtain a strong first-order phase transition and to generate a sufficient baryon asymmetry. For this we determine the shape of the nucleating bubbles, including the profiles of CP-violating phases. The baryon asymmetry is calculated using the advanced transport theory to first and second order in gradient expansion presented recently. Still, first and second generation sfermions must be heavy to avoid large electric dipole moments.

Energy budget of cosmological first-order phase transitions

The study of the hydrodynamics of bubble growth in first-order phase transitions is very relevant for electroweak baryogenesis, as the baryon asymmetry depends sensitively on the bubble wall velocity, and also for predicting the size of the gravity wave signal resulting from bubble collisions, which depends on both the bubble wall velocity and the plasma fluid velocity. We perform such study in different bubble expansion regimes, namely deflagrations, detonations, hybrids (steady states) and runaway solutions (accelerating wall), without relying on a specific particle physics model. We compute the efficiency of the transfer of vacuum energy to the bubble wall and the plasma in all regimes. We clarify the condition determining the runaway regime and stress that in most models of strong first-order phase transitions this will modify expectations for the gravity wave signal. Indeed, in this case, most of the kinetic energy is concentrated in the wall and almost no turbulent fluid motions are expected since the surrounding fluid is kept mostly at rest.

Cosmological perturbation theory at three-loop order

We analyze the dark matter power spectrum at three-loop order in standard perturbation theory of large scale structure. We observe that at late times the loop expansion does not converge even for large scales (small momenta) well within the linear regime, but exhibits properties compatible with an asymptotic series. We propose a technique to restore the convergence in the limit of small momentum, and use it to obtain a perturbative expansion with improved convergence for momenta in the range where baryonic acoustic oscillations are present. Our numerical three-loop results are compared with data from N-body simulations at different redshifts, and we find good agreement within this range.

Gravitational Backreaction Effects on the Holographic Phase Transition

We study radion stabilization in the compact Randall-Sundrum model by introducing a bulk scalar field, as in the Goldberger and Wise mechanism, but (partially) taking into account the backreactions from the scalar field on the metric. Our generalization reconciles the radion potential found by Goldberger and Wise with the radion mass obtained with the so-called superpotential method where backreaction is fully considered. Moreover we study the holographic phase transition and its gravitational wave signals in this model. The improved control over backreactions opens up a large region in parameter space and leads, compared to former analysis, to weaker constraints on the rank N of the dual gauge theory. We conclude that, in the regime where the 1/N expansion is justified, the gravitational wave signal is detectable by LISA.

On the non-linear scale of cosmological perturbation theory

We discuss the convergence of cosmological perturbation theory. We prove that the polynomial enhancement of the non-linear corrections expected from the effects of soft modes is absent in equal-time correlators like the power or bispectrum. We first show this at leading order by resumming the most important corrections of soft modes to an arbitrary skeleton of hard fluctuations. We derive the same result in the eikonal approximation, which also allows us to show the absence of enhancement at any order. We complement the proof by an explicit calculation of the power spectrum at two-loop order, and by further numerical checks at higher orders. Using these insights, we argue that the modification of the power spectrum from soft modes corresponds at most to logarithmic corrections at any order in perturbation theory. Finally, we discuss the asymptotic behavior in the large and small momentum regimes and identify the expansion parameter pertinent to non-linear corrections.

Electroweak baryogenesis in non-minimal composite Higgs models

We address electroweak baryogenesis in the context of composite Higgs models, pointing out that modifications to the Higgs and top quark sectors can play an important role in generating the baryon asymmetry. Our main observation is that composite Higgs models that include a light, gauge singlet scalar in the spectrum [as in the model based on the symmetry breaking pattern SO(6) → SO(5)], provide all necessary ingredients for viable baryogenesis. In particular, the singlet leads to a strongly first-order electroweak phase transition and introduces new sources of CP violation in dimension-five operators involving the top quark. We discuss the amount of baryon asymmetry produced and the experimental constraints on the model.

Cosmological consequences of nearly conformal dynamics at the TeV scale

Nearly conformal dynamics at the TeV scale as motivated by the hierarchy problem can be characterized by a stage of significant supercooling at the electroweak epoch. This has important cosmological consequences. In particular, a common assumption about the history of the universe is that the reheating temperature is high, at least high enough to assume that TeV-mass particles were once in thermal equilibrium. However, as we discuss in this paper, this assumption is not well justified in some models of strong dynamics at the TeV scale. We then need to reexamine how to achieve baryogenesis in these theories as well as reconsider how the dark matter abundance is inherited. We argue that baryonic and dark matter abundances can be explained naturally in these setups where reheating takes place by bubble collisions at the end of the strongly first-order phase transition characterizing conformal symmetry breaking, even if the reheating temperature is below the electroweak scale ~ 100 GeV. In particular, non-thermal production of heavy WIMPs during bubble collisions becomes a well-motivated possibility. We also discuss inflation as well as gravity wave smoking gun signatures of this class of models.

Numerical approach to multi-dimensional phase transitions

We present an algorithm for numerically analysing the bounce solution for first-order phase transitions. Our approach is well suited to treating phase transitions with several fields. The algorithm consists of two parts. In the first part the bounce solution without damping is determined; in this case energy is conserved. In the second part the continuation to the physically relevant case with damping is performed. The approach presented is numerically stable and easily implemented.