Sphaleron in the first-order electroweak phase transition with the dimension-six Higgs operator
Vo Quoc Phong, Phan Hong Khiem, Ngo Phuc Duc Loc, Hoang Ngoc Long
备注：
34 pages, 7 figures. We would like to thank all comments (of Amine Ahriche, Jorinde van de Vis, Carlos Tamarit, Michael Spannowsky, Mikael Chala, Graham White, Jordy de Vries) for arxiv:2003.09625v1 and the comments of the reviewer for DQ12720-Phong; matches journal version (PRD)
By adding the dimension-six operator for the Higgs potential (denoted $\mathcal{O}_6$) in Standard Model, we have a first-order electroweak phase transition (EWPT) whose strength is larger than unity. The cutoff parameter of the dimension-six Higgs operator ($Λ$) is found to be in the range 593-860 GeV with the Wilson parameter equals to unity; it is also shown that the greater the $Λ$, the lower the phase transition strength and the larger the Wilson parameter, the wider the domain of $Λ$. At zero temperature, the sphaleron energy is calculated with a smooth ansatz and an ansatz with scale-free parameters, thereby we find that smooth profiles are not more accurate than profiles with scale-free parameters. Then, using the one-loop effective Higgs potential with the inclusion of $\mathcal{O}_6$ instead of all possible dimension-six operators, we directly calculate the electroweak sphaleron energy at finite temperature with the scale-free parameters ansatz and show that the decoupling condition is satisfied during the phase transition. Moreover, we can reevaluate the upper bound of the cutoff scale inferred from the first-order phase transition. In addition, with the upper bound of the cutoff parameter (about 800-860 GeV), EWPT is a solution to the energy scale of the dimension-six operators. There is an extended conclusion that EWPT can only be solved at a large energy scale than that of SM.
We show that, at finite weak mixing angle the sphaleron solution of Weinberg-Salam theory can be endowed with angular momentum proportional to the electric charge. Carrying baryon number 1/2 these sphalerons with spin and charge may contribute to baryon number violating processes.
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Sphaleron is a non-perturbative solution of electroweak gauge theories, which is crucially important for the scenario of electroweak baryogenesis. The sphaleron energy depends on details of the mechanism for the electroweak symmetry breaking. We find that in many of new physics models the deviation of the sphaleron energy from the prediction in the standard model is proportional to that of the triple Higgs boson coupling with opposite signs. This interesting relation would be useful to determine the sphaleron energy by measuring this couplings at future collider experiments.
We calculate the electroweak sphaleron rates in the reduced minimal 3-3-1 (RM331) model. In the context of the early Universe, this model undergoes a sequence of two first-order phase transitions, $SU(3) \rightarrow SU(2)$ at the TeV scale and $SU(2)\rightarrow U(1)$ at the $10^2$ GeV scale, as the Universe cools down from the hot big bang. By a thin-wall approximation, we show that for each phase transition in this sequence, the sphaleron rate is larger than the cosmological expansion rate at temperatures higher than the critical temperature, and after the phase transition, the sphaleron proc…
The electroweak phase transition and the sphaleron decoupling condition in the MSSM are revisited taking the latest experimental data into account. The light Higgs boson scenario and the ordinary decoupling limit which are classified by the relative size between the CP-odd Higgs boson mass and Z boson mass are considered within the context of electroweak baryogenesis. We investigate v/T at not only the critical temperature at which the effective potential has two degenerate minima but also the nucleation temperature of the critical bubbles, where v is a vacuum expectation value of the Higgs bo…
Recently Bodeker has presented an effective infrared theory for the dynamics of Yang-Mills theory, suitable for studying the rate of baryon number violation in the early universe. We extend his theory to include Higgs fields, and study how much the Higgs affects the baryon number violation rate in the symmetric phase, at the phase coexistence temperature of a first order electroweak phase transition. The rate is about 20% smaller than in pure Yang-Mills theory. We also analyze the sphaleron rate in the analytic crossover regime. Our treatment relies on the ergodicity conjecture for 3-D scalar …
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We undertake a comprehensive investigation of the properties of the sphaleron in electroweak theories with two Higgs doublets. We do this in as model-independent a way as possible: by exploring the physical parameter space described by the masses and mixing angles of the Higgs particles. If there is a large split in the masses of the neutral Higgs particles, there can be several sphaleron solutions, distinguished by their properties under parity and the behaviour of the Higgs field at the origin. In general, these solutions appear in parity conjugate pairs and are not spherically symmetric, al…
We report on work studying the properties of the sphaleron in models of the electroweak interactions with two Higgs doublets in as model-independent a way as possible: by exploring the physical parameter space described by the masses and mixing angles of the Higgs particles. If one of the Higgs particles is heavy, there can be several sphaleron solutions, distinguished by their properties under parity and the behaviour of the Higgs field at the origin. In general, these solutions are not spherically symmetric, although the departure from spherical symmetry is small.
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We solve numerically for periodic, spherically symmetric, classical solutions of SU(2)-Higgs theory in four-dimensional Euclidean space. In the limit of short periods the solutions approach tiny instanton-anti-instanton superpositions while, for longer periods, the solutions merge with the static sphaleron. A previously predicted bifurcation point, where two branches of periodic solutions meet, appears for Higgs boson masses larger than $3.091 M_W$.
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There is a close analogy between electroweak instanton-induced baryon plus lepton number (B+L) violating processes in Quantum Flavor Dynamics (QFD) and hard QCD instanton-induced chirality violating processes in deep-inelastic scattering. In view of the recent information about the latter both from lattice simulations and from the H1 experiment at HERA, it seems worthwhile to reconsider electroweak B+L violation at high energies. We present a state of the art evaluation of QFD instanton-induced parton-parton cross-sections, as relevant at future high energy colliders in the hundreds of TeV reg…
Using lattice simulations, we measure the sphaleron rate in the Standard Model as a function of temperature through the electroweak cross-over, for the Higgs masses m_H=115 and m_H=160 GeV. We pay special attention to the shutting off of the baryon rate as the temperature is lowered. This quantity enters computations of Baryogenesis via Leptogenesis, where non-zero lepton number is converted into non-zero baryon number by equilibrium sphaleron transitions. Combining existing numerical methods applicable in the symmetric and broken electroweak phases, we find the temperature dependence of the s…
We present a semiclassical study of the suppression of topology changing, baryon number violating transitions induced by particle collisions in the electroweak theory. We find that below the sphaleron energy the suppression exponent is remarkably close to the analytic estimates based on a low energy expansion about the instanton. Above the sphaleron energy, the relevant semiclassical solutions have qualitatively different properties from those below the sphaleron: they correspond to jumps on top of the barrier. Yet these processes remain exponentially suppressed, and, furthermore, the tunnelin…
We present the relation between the sphaleron energy and the gravitational wave signals from a first order electroweak phase transition. The crucial ingredient is the scaling law between the sphaleron energy at the temperature of the phase transition and that at zero temperature. We estimate the baryon number preservation criterion, and observe that for a sufficiently strong phase transition, it is possible to probe the electroweak sphaleron using measurements of future space-based gravitational wave detectors.
The classical transitions between topologically distinct vacua in a SU(2)-Higgs model, using a Higgs field of mass approximately 120 GeV, is examined to probe the crossover region between the symmetric and broken phase. Assuming the Higgs mass is constant, we find the width of this crossover region is approximately 20% of the average temperature. We suggest that this observable is a better parameter to explore this region of phase space than equal-time correlation functions.
Electroweak vacuum transition processes (sphalerons) in the early Universe provide a possible explanation of the baryon asymmetry. Combining this physics with the anomalous commutators of Adler and Boulware and renormalization group invariance, we argue that electroweak baryon number violation also induces a ``topological condensate'' in the vacuum. QCD sphaleron processes act to distribute the baryon number violation between both left and right handed quarks and induce a spin independent component in this ``condensate''.
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New defects (Z-vortices and Nambu monopoles) are found to become thermodynamically relevant for the broken phase near to the (weakly first order) electroweak phase transition, and below the crossover for higher Higgs mass. The symmetric phase is characterized by vortex condensation (percolation). The percolation transition persists in the crossover region. The quasiclassical nature of the vortices is supported by correlations with Higgs field and gauge field energy. Sphalerons are shown to be related to monopolium bound states.
We discuss the effects of various processes that can be active during the leptogenesis era, and present the Boltzmann equations that take them into account appropriately. A non-vanishing Higgs number asymmetry is always present, enhancing the washout of the lepton asymmetry. This is the main new effect when leptogenesis takes place at $T>10^{12}$ GeV, reducing the final baryon asymmetry and tightening the leptogenesis bound on the neutrino masses. If leptogenesis occurs at lower temperatures, electroweak sphalerons partially transfer the lepton asymmetry to a baryonic one, while Yukawa interac…
We perform a systematic study of stationary sphaleron-antisphaleron systems of Weinberg-Salam theory at the physical value of the weak mixing angle. These systems include rotating sphaleron-antisphaleron pairs, chains and vortex rings. We show that the angular momentum of these solutions is proportional to their electric charge. We study the dependence of their energy and magnetic moment on their angular momentum. We also investigate the influence of their angular momentum on their local properties, in particular on their energy density and on the node structure of their Higgs field configurat…
We present numerical evidence for the existence of stationary spinning generalizations for the static sphaleron in the Weinberg-Salam theory. Our results suggest that, for any value of the mixing angle $\thetw$ and for any Higgs mass, the spinning sphalerons comprise a family labeled by their angular momentum $J$. For $\thetw\neq 0$ they possess an electric charge $Q=eJ$ where $e$ is the electron charge. Inside they contain a monopole-antimonopole pair and a spinning loop of electric current, and for large $J$ they show a Regge-type behavior. It is likely that these sphalerons mediate the topo…
It has recently been proposed that the production of long wavelength Higgs and gauge configurations via parametric resonance at the end of inflation may give rise to the required baryon asymmetry at the electroweak scale. We show that the stability of the inflaton oscillations, long after the production of Higgs modes, keeps driving the sphaleron transitions, which then become strongly correlated to the inflaton oscillations. In models where the CP-violation operator is related to time variations of the Higgs field, these correlations immediately lead to an efficient generation of baryons that…
We start by considering the production rates of sphalerons with different size $ρ$ in the symmetric phase, $T>T_{EW}$. At small $ρ$, the distribution is cut off by the growing mass $M\sim 1/ρ$, and at large $ρ$ by the magnetic screening mass. In the broken phase, $T<T_{EW}$ the scale is set by the Higgs VEV $v(T)$. We introduce the concept of "Sphaleron freezeout" whereby the sphaleron production rate matches the Hubble Universe expansion rate. At freezeout the sphalerons are out of equilibrium. Sphaleron explosions generate sound and even gravity waves, when nonzero Weinberg angle make them n…
In an external magnetic field, the energy of the electroweak sphaleron---representing the energy barrier to baryon and lepton number violation---decreases but remains nonzero until the upper Ambjorn-Olesen critical field strength set by the Higgs mass and the electric charge, where it vanishes. We demonstrate this by numerically computing the sphaleron configuration in the presence of an external magnetic field, over the full range of field strengths until the energy barrier vanishes. We discuss the implications for baryogenesis in the early universe, and the possibility of observing of baryon…
We use semiclassical methods to calculate the probability of inducing a change of topology via a high-energy collision in the SU(2)-Higgs theory. This probability is determined by a complex solution to a classical boundary value problem on a contour in the complex time plane. In the case of small particle number it is the probability of instanton-like processes in particle collisions. We obtain numerically configurations with the correct topological features and expected properties in the complex time plane. Our work demonstrates the feasibility of the numerical approach to the calculation of …
I report on a critical analysis of the scenario of electroweak baryogenesis mediated by nonsuperconducting cosmic strings. This mechanism relies upon electroweak symmetry restoration in a region around cosmic strings, where sphalerons would be unsuppressed. I discuss the various problems this scenario has to face, presenting a careful computation of the sphaleron rates inside the strings, of the chemical potential for chiral number and of the efficiency of baryogenesis in different regimes of string networks. The conclusion is that the asymmetry in baryon number generated by this scenario is s…
The discovery of the Higgs boson marks a key ingredient to establish the electroweak structure of the Standard Model. Its non-abelian gauge structure gives rise to, yet unobserved, non-perturbative baryon and lepton number violating processes. We propose to use cosmic ray air showers, as measured at the Pierre Auger Observatory, to set a limit on the hadronic production cross section of sphalerons. We identify several observables to discriminate between sphaleron and QCD induced air showers.
New physics at the TeV scale can affect the dynamics of the electroweak phase transition in many ways. In this note, we evaluate its impact on the rate of baryon-number violation via sphaleron transitions. We parameterize the effect of new physics with dimension-6 operators, and we use the Newton-Kantorovich method to numerically solve the resulting equations of motion. Depending on the sign of the coefficient of the dimension-6 operators, their presence can either increase or decrease the sphaleron energy at the level of a few percent, parametrically of order $m_W^2 / Λ^2$ where $Λ$ is the sc…
In this work we investigate the sphaleron solution in a $SU(2)\times U(1)_X$ gauge theory, which also encompasses the Standard Model, with higher scalar representation(s) ($J^{(i)},X^{(i)}$). We show that the field profiles describing the sphaleron in higher scalar multiplet, have similar trends like the doublet case with respect to the radial distance. We compute the sphaleron energy and find that it scales linearly with the vacuum expectation value of the scalar field and its slope depends on the representation. We also investigate the effect of $U(1)$ gauge field and find that it is small f…
After the discovery of the Higgs boson and the rather precise measurement of all electroweak boson's masses the local structure of the electroweak symmetry breaking potential is already quite well established. However, despite being a key ingredient to a fundamental understanding of the underlying mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking, the global structure of the electroweak potential remains entirely unknown. The existence of sphalerons, unstable solutions of the classical action of motion that are interpolating between topologically distinct vacua, is a direct consequence of the Standar…
3D electroweak sphalerons on the lattice are used as test configurations for definitions of various topological defects. In the maximally Abelian gauge they are shown to contain a symmetric array of Abelian monopoles and anti-monopoles connected by two kinds of Abelian vortex strings. Gauge-invariant lattice definitions of the Nambu monopole and the Z-vortex string are formulated which correspond to Abelian projection from the unitary gauge. The sphalerons contain in their core just one (non-Abelian) Nambu monopole-anti-monopole pair (connected by a Z-string) in an unstable saddle point bound …
