Theoretical uncertainties for cosmological first-order phase transitions

Croon, Djuna; Gould, Oliver; Schicho, Philipp; Tenkanen, Tuomas V. I.; White, Graham

Abstract

We critically examine the magnitude of theoretical uncertainties in perturbative calculations of fist-order phase transitions, using the Standard Model effective field theory as our guide. In the usual daisy-resummed approach, we find large uncertainties due to renormalisation scale dependence, which amount to two to three orders-of-magnitude uncertainty in the peak gravitational wave amplitude, relevant to experiments such as LISA. Alternatively, utilising dimensional reduction in a more sophisticated perturbative approach drastically reduces this scale dependence, pushing it to higher orders. Further, this approach resolves other thorny problems with daisy resummation: it is gauge invariant which is explicitly demonstrated for the Standard Model, and avoids an uncontrolled derivative expansion in the bubble nucleation rate.

Citation

Croon, D., Gould, O., Schicho, P., Tenkanen, T. V. I., & White, G. (2021). Theoretical uncertainties for cosmological first-order phase transitions. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2021(4), Article 55. https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP04%282021%29055

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 28, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Apr 7, 2021
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2021
• Deposit Date: Sep 8, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 8, 2021
• Journal: Journal of High Energy Physics
• Electronic ISSN: 1029-8479
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2021
• Issue: 4
• Article Number: 55
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP04%282021%29055
• Keywords: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/6187492
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FJHEP04%282021%29055
• Additional Information: Received: 30 September 2020; Revised: 15 February 2021; Accepted: 28 February 2021; First Online: 7 April 2021