Phase Transition Temperatures at Next-to-Leading Order

الأصل · EN

Broken gauge symmetries are typically restored at high temperature, and the leading-order result for the critical temperature Tc was found many years ago by Weinberg and by Dolan and Jackiw. I find a simple expression for the next-to-leading order correction to Tc, which is order e Tc where e is the gauge coupling. The result is a simple consequence of recent work on summing ring diagrams at high temperature in gauge theories. The result is valid when the Higgs self-coupling λ is the same order as e², and it does not address the case of strongly first-order phase transitions, which arise when λ≪ e².