Higher-order corrections to phase-transition parameters in dimensional reduction

The dynamics of phase transitions (PT) in quantum field theories at finite temperature is most accurately described within the framework of dimensional reduction. In this framework, thermodynamic quantities are computed within the 3-dimensional effective field theory (EFT) that results from integrat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2024-10
Main Authors: Chala, Mikael, Criado, Juan Carlos, Gil, Luis, Javier López Miras
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Gravitational waves
High temperature
Impact analysis
Operators (mathematics)
Parameters
Peak frequency
Phase transitions
Quantum theory
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The dynamics of phase transitions (PT) in quantum field theories at finite temperature is most accurately described within the framework of dimensional reduction. In this framework, thermodynamic quantities are computed within the 3-dimensional effective field theory (EFT) that results from integrating out the high-temperature Matsubara modes. However, strong-enough PTs, observable in gravitational wave (GW) detectors, occur often nearby the limit of validity of the EFT, where effective operators can no longer be neglected. Here, we perform a quantitative analysis of the impact of these interactions on the determination of PT parameters. We find that they allow for strong PTs in a wider region of parameter space, and that both the peak frequency and the amplitude of the resulting GW power spectrum can change by more than one order of magnitude when they are included. As a byproduct of this work, we derive equations for computing the bounce solution in the presence of higher-derivative terms, consistently with the EFT power counting.
ISSN:2331-8422