Tricritical point of finite-temperature phase transitions in large N (Higgs) gauge theories

Journal Article · Thu May 01 04:00:00 EDT 1997 · Physical Review, D

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.55.6274· OSTI ID:503751

Arnold, P; Wright, D ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195 (United States)

Gauge theories broken by a single Higgs field are known to have first-order phase transitions in temperature if {lambda}/g{sup 2}{lt}1, where g is the gauge coupling and {lambda} the Higgs self-coupling. If the theory is extended from one to N Higgs doublets, with U(N) flavor symmetry, the transition is known to be second order for {lambda}/g{sup 2}{approx_gt}1 in the N{r_arrow}{infinity} limit. We show that one can, in principle, compute the tricritical value of {lambda}/g{sup 2}, separating first- from second-order transitions, to any order in 1/N. In particular, scalar fluctuations at the transition damp away the usual problems with the infrared behavior of high-temperature non-Abelian gauge theories. We explicitly compute the tricritical value of {lambda}/g{sup 2} for U(1) and SU(2) gauge theory to next-to-leading order in 1/N. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}

• OSTI ID: 503751
• Journal Information: Physical Review, D, Journal Name: Physical Review, D Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 55; ISSN 0556-2821; ISSN PRVDAQ
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

66 PHYSICS
COUPLING
CRITICALITY
FLAVOR
FLUCTUATIONS
HIGGS BOSONS
HIGGS MODEL
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
SU-2 GROUPS
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
U GROUPS
UNIFIED GAUGE MODELS