Search

The delay of the first-order electroweak phase transitions (EWPT) may lead to the emergence of baby universes inside wormhole structures due to the large vacuum energy density in false vacuum domains. Observers outside the false vacuum domains observe them as primordial black holes (PBHs), categorized as super-critical PBHs. We specifically investigate the dynamics of PBH formation due to delayed first-order EWPTs by solving the equations of bubble wall dynamics. We numerically confirm that such super-critical PBHs can be formed by the delayed first-order EWPT assuming spherically symmetric false vacuum domains with the thin-wall approximation for its boundary. Our numerical results show that a PBH formation criterion utilizing characteristic timescales is more appropriate than the conventional criterion based on density fluctuations. Employing our numerical results, we update the parameter regions of new physics models which can be explored by current and future constraints on the PBH abundance., Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures

In order to understand the early history of the universe, and to test baryogenesis models, determining the nature of the electroweak phase transition is imperative. The order and strength of this transition is strongly correlated to relatively large deviations in the $hhh$ coupling. In models where a considerable part of the $hhh$ coupling deviation is caused by charged particle loops, the $h\gamma\gamma$ coupling is also expected to deviate considerably. In this talk, by using a model-independent approach, I explain how to obtain conditions that are sufficient for a strongly first order phase transition. After the $h\gamma\gamma$ coupling is determined with precision at the HL-LHC, these conditions can be tested at Future Linear Colliders by measurements of the $hhh$ coupling, to conclusively determine the nature of the electroweak phase transition and the viability of electroweak baryogenesis on models with new charged scalars., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, Presented in LCWS2024 and submitted in conference proceedings

The nearly aligned Higgs Effective Field Theory (naHEFT) is based on the general assumption: all deviations in the Higgs boson couplings are originated from quantum one-loop effects of new particles that are integrated out. If the new particles integrated out have the same non-decoupling property, physics of the electroweak symmetry breaking can be then described by several parameters in the naHEFT, so that there is a correlation among the Higgs boson couplings such as $h \gamma \gamma$, $hWW$ and $hhh$ couplings. In this paper, we analyze the strongly first-order electroweak phase transition (EWPT) with the condition of sphaleron decoupling and the completion condition of the phase transition, and investigate the relation among the deviations in the Higgs boson couplings and the dynamics of the EWPTs. We also take into account the gravitational wave spectrum as well as the primordial black hole predicted at the EWPT. We show that if the new particles integrated out include charged scalar states future precision measurements of the $h \gamma \gamma$ coupling can give a useful prediction on the $hhh$ coupling to realize the strongly first-order EWPT. We can explore the nature of EWPT and the new physics behind it by the combination of precision measurements of various Higgs boson couplings at future collider experiments, gravitational wave observations at future space-based interferometers and searches for primordial black holes., Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures

We investigate the formation of primordial black holes (PBHs) through delayed vacuum decay during slow cosmic first-order phase transitions. Two specific models, the polynomial potential and the real singlet extension of the Standard Model, are used as illustrative examples. Our findings reveal that models with zero-temperature scalar potential barriers are conducive to the realization of this mechanism, as the phase transition duration is extended by the U-shaped Euclidean action. We find that the resulting PBH density is highly sensitive to the barrier height, with abundant PBH formation observed for sufficiently high barriers. Notably, the phase transition needs not to be ultra-supercooled (i.e. the parameter $\alpha\gg1$), and the commonly used exponential nucleation approximation $\Gamma(t)\sim e^{\beta t}$ fails to capture the PBH formation dynamics in such models., Comment: 18 pages + appendix + references, 8 figures. To match the JHEP version

We investigate the properties of the gravitational waves (GWs) generated during a strongly first order electroweak phase transition (EWPT) in models with the classical scale invariance (CSI). Here, we distinguish two parameter space regions that correspond to the cases of (1) light dilaton and (2) purely radiative Higgs mass (PRHM). In the CSI models, the dilaton mass, or the Higgs mass in the PRHM case, in addition to some triple scalar couplings are fully triggered by the radiative corrections (RCs). In order to probe the RC effects on the EWPT strength and on the GW spectrum, we extend the standard model by a real singlet to assist the electroweak symmetry breaking and an additional scalar field $Q$ with multiplicity $N_Q$ and mass $m_Q$. After imposing all theoretical and experimental constraints, we show that a strongly first order EWPT with detectable GW spectra can be realized for the two cases of light dilaton and PRHM. We also show the corresponding values of the relative enhancement of the cross section for the di-Higgs production process, which is related to the triple Higgs boson coupling. We obtain the region in which the GW spectrum can be observed by different future experiments such as LISA and DECIGO. We also show that the scenarios (1) and (2) can be discriminated by future GW observations and measurements of the di-Higgs productions at future colliders., Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, version accepted by Journal of High Energy Physics

We investigate production of primordial black holes from first-order electroweak phase transition in the framework of the nearly aligned Higgs effective field theory, in which non-decoupling quantum effects are properly described. Since the mass of such primordial black holes is evaluated to be about $10^{-5}$ of the solar mass, current and future microlensing observations such as Subaru HSC, OGLE, PRIME and Roman Space Telescope may be able to probe the electroweak phase transition. We study parameter regions where primordial black holes can be produced by the first-order electroweak phase transition, and explore their detectability at these observations. Complementarity of primordial black hole observations, gravitational wave observations and collider experiments is also discussed for testing the nature of the electroweak phase transition., Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures

We investigate the strongly first-order electroweak phase transition using an effective field theoretical approach. The standard effective field theory with finite number truncation of higher dimensional operators fails in the typical parameter space where the strongly first-order phase transition is realized because it cannot describe the non-decoupling quantum effect of new physics beyond the standard model. To parameterize the non-decoupling quantum effect, we employ the nearly aligned Higgs effective theory in which the Higgs potential is parameterized by a Coleman-Weinberg like form. Extending this framework with finite temperature corrections, we study the parameter space for realizing the strongly first-order phase transition, and estimate the gravitational wave produced at the phase transition., Comment: 28 pages, 6 figures; references added

We discuss first-order electroweak phase transition in models with extended Higgs sectors for the case with relatively heavy additional scalar bosons. We first show that, by the combination of the sphaleron decoupling condition, perturbative unitarity and vacuum stability, mass upper bounds on additional scalar bosons can be obtained at the TeV scale even at the alignment limit where the lightest Higgs boson behaves exactly like the SM Higgs boson at tree level. We then discuss phenomenological impacts of the case with the additional scalar bosons with the mass near 1 TeV. Even when they are too heavy to be directly detected at current and future experiments at hadron colliders, the large deviation in the triple Higgs boson coupling can be a signature for first-order phase transition due to quantum effects of such heavy additional Higgs bosons. On the other hand, gravitational waves from the first-order phase transition are found to be weaker in this case as compared to that with lower masses of additional scalar bosons., Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures, Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D

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., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, Version published in Physics Letters B