PHYSICAL REVIEW D 75, 083522 (2007)

What is the criterion for a strong first order electroweak phase transition in singlet models?
Amine Ahriche*
Faculty of Physics, University of Bielefeld, Postfach 100131, D-33501 Bielefeld, Germany,
and Department of Physics, University of Jijel, BP 98, Ouled Aissa, DZ-18000 Jijel, Algeria
(Received 23 January 2007; revised manuscript received 23 March 2007; published 18 April 2007)
It is widely believed that the existence of singlet scalars in some standard model extensions can easily
make the electroweak phase transition strongly first order, which is needed for the electroweak baryo-
genesis scenario. In this paper, we will examine the strength of the electroweak phase transition in the
simplest extension of the standard model with a real singlet using the sphaleron energy at the critical
temperature. We find that the phase transition is stronger by adding a singlet; and also that the criterion for
a strong phase transition

Tc =Tc * 1, where


2 
x  x0 2 1=2 and x (x0 ) is the singlet vev in the
broken (symmetric) phase, is not valid for models containing singlets, even though often used in the
literature. The usual condition
c =Tc * 1 is more meaningful, and it is satisfied for a large part of the
parameter space for physically allowed Higgs masses.

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.75.083522 PACS numbers: 98.80.Cq, 11.10.Wx, 11.15.Ha

I. INTRODUCTION C and CP symmetries; and (iii) take place out of

equilibrium.
The standard cosmological model has been successful in
One of the most interesting scenarios for baryogenesis is
describing the early universe; it is supported by a number
the electroweak baryogenesis (for a review, see [5]), where
of important observations: the expansion of the universe,
the third Sakharov condition is realized via a strong first-
the abundance of the light elements, and the cosmic mi-
order phase transition at the electroweak scale.
crowave background (CMB) radiation. These three mea-
In gauge theories, a first-order phase transition takes
surable signatures strongly support the notion that our
place if the vacuum of the theory does not correspond to
universe evolved from a dense, nearly featureless hot gas,
the global minimum of the potential. Since it is energeti-
just as the big bang model predicts.
cally unfavored, the field changes its value to the true
However it fails to explain some serious problems like
vacuum (i.e. the absolute minimum of the potential).
the nature of dark matter and dark energy; and the domi-
Because of the existence of a barrier between the two
nance of matter over antimatter.
minima, this mechanism can happen by tunneling or ther-
From a theoretical point of view, there is no justification
mal fluctuations via bubble nucleation. The electroweak
to assume that the universe started its evolution with a
baryogenesis scenario is realized when the B and CP
defined baryon asymmetry; nb
t  0 > nb
t  0. The
violating interactions pass through the bubble wall. These
natural assumption is that the universe was initially neutral.
interactions are very fast outside the bubbles but sup-
Direct observations show that the universe contains no
pressed inside. Then a net baryon asymmetry results inside
appreciable primordial antimatter. In addition, the success
the bubbles which are expanding and filling the universe at
of big bang nucleosynthesis requires that the ratio of the
the end.
effective baryon number (nb  nb ) to the entropy density
In order to compute the net baryon number, the rate of B
should be between [1]
violating processes in the broken phase is needed. In the
nb  nb standard model, B number is violated at the quantum level
2:6  1010 <   < 6:2  1010 : (1) [6], where the transition between two topologically distinct
s
SU
2L ground states is possible.
This number has been independently determined to be   The transition between two neighboring ground states

8:7  0:3  1011 from precise measurements of the breaks both lepton and baryon numbers by L  B  3.
relative heights of the first two microwave background To find the rate of B violating processes, one needs to know
(CMB) acoustic peaks by the WMAP satellite [2]. Thus the sphaleron solution, which is a static field configuration
how can one understand the origin of this asymmetry? This that interpolates between the two distinct ground states.
is what is called the problem of baryogenesis (for a review The sphaleron configuration was found in [7] for the
see [3]). In 1967, Sakharov forwarded his three conditions SU
2L model.
for baryogenesis [4], which are summarized in the exis- A model-independent condition in order that the phase
tence of processes which: (i) violate B number, (ii) violate transition be strong enough was derived in [8]:

*Electronic address: [email protected] Esp
Tc =Tc > 45; (2)

1550-7998= 2007=75(8)=083522(9) 083522-1 © 2007 The American Physical Society

AMINE AHRICHE PHYSICAL REVIEW D 75, 083522 (2007)
where Esp and Tc are the sphaleron energy and the critical concentrate here on the scalar sector (SM Higgs and the
temperature, respectively. Since it was shown in [9] that added singlet) and the SU
2L gauge sector.3
Esp
T /

T,1 the condition (2) can be translated for the
case of the standard model to [11] A. The effective Lagrangian
The Lagrangian is given by

c =Tc > 1; (3)
a Fa 
D y
D   1
@ S
@ S
L  14F  2 
where
c is the field value at the critical temperature.
However, this condition (3) is not fulfilled in the case of  Veff
; S; (6)
the standard model, because the thermal induced cubic
term2 is not large enough; also this leads to an unaccept- where  is the Higgs doublet
p



able upper bound on the Higgs mass [12] T  1= 2
1  i2 h  i3 ; (7)
mh 42 GeV: (4) where h is the scalar standard Higgs, ’s are the three
a
Goldstone bosons, and F is the SU
2L field strength
The constraint gets even stronger when the two-loop
a
effects and a proper treatment of the top quark are included F  @ Aa  @ Aa  gabc Ab Ac : (8)
[13]. It is clear that this bound is in contradiction with the
lower bound coming from LEP mh > 114 GeV [14]. D is the covariant derivative; when neglecting the UY
1
This severe bound can be avoided by adding a complex gauge group, it is given by
scalar singlet that couples only to the Higgs doublet with i
an appropriate choice of the theory parameters in a way D  @  ga Aa : (9)
2
that the singlet does not develop a vev [15].
If a new scalar [or many scalars which can be singlets or Finally, Veff
; S is the effective potential, which is at tree
in doublet with respect to SU
2L ] acquiring a vacuum level given by
expectation value x is added to the standard model, the V0
; S  jj4  2h jj2  !jj2 S2  jj2 S
term
c in (3) should perhaps be replaced by
c which
equals f
2c  x2c g1=2 ; or f
2c 
x  x0 2c g1=2 when the false S 2S 2
 S4  S3  S: (10)
vacuum is
0; x0  instead of (0, 0) [16]. Then (3) becomes 4 3 2
We can eliminate 2h and 2S by making

; x as the

c =Tc > 1: (5)
absolute minimum of the one-loop effective potential at
If the new particle(s) is a singlet(s), cubic terms can exist zero temperature, where
 246:22 GeV is the standard
in the potential at tree level, and therefore the phase Higgs vev.
transition gets stronger without the need of the thermally Now, we write the explicit formula of the one-loop
induced one [16,17]. effective potential. We will consider the contributions of
In this work, we want to check whether the passage from the gauge bosons, the standard Higgs h, the singlet S, the
(2) to (5), for a model with a singlet, is true or not. We will Goldstone bosons 1;2;3 , and the top quark. The field-
consider the simplest extension of the standard model with dependent masses at zero temperature are given by
a real singlet. This paper is organized as follows: In Sec. II, 1 g 2  g02 2 g2 2
we briefly introduce this model, and find the sphaleron m2t  y2t h2 ; m2Z  h; m2W  h;
2 4 4
solution in Sec. III. In Sec. IV, we discuss the strength of
the first-order electroweak phase transition (EWPT). m2  h2  2h  !S2  S;
Finally we give our conclusion. 1
m2h;S ! m21;2 
3  !h2 
3 S  !S2
2
II. THE STANDARD MODEL WITH A SINGLET 
 2 S  2h  2S
‘‘SMS’’ f

3  !h2 
3  !S2
S
Let us consider an extension of the standard model by a 
 2 S  2h  2S 2
singlet real scalar S coupled only to the standard Higgs. We
 4
2!S  2 h2 g1=2 ; (11)
1
This was also checked for the minimal supersymmetric where yt is the Yukawa coupling for the top quark, and
standard model (MSSM) in [10], then (3) is valid also for the
MSSM.
2 3
This term is forbidden by symmetry at tree level, however it Since we are interested here in the sphaleron solution, we
appears as T
m2 3=2 from the thermal bosonic contributions to assume the UY
1 contribution to the sphaleron energy to be
the effective potential at one-loop. negligible as in the case of standard model [18].

083522-2
WHAT IS THE CRITERION FOR A STRONG FIRST . . . PHYSICAL REVIEW D 75, 083522 (2007)
2 2 02
g  g  g ; however, we neglected the UY
1 gauge 11 2 2 11
group and therefore g0  0 and mZ  mW ; and m21;2 are LW  g T ; TW  0; LZ  g2 T 2 ;
6 6
the Higgs-singlet eigenmasses. Then the one-loop correc- TZ  0;  
g2 =4  =2  y2t =4  !=6T 2 ;
tion to the effective potential at zero temperature is given
by hh 
g2 =4  3 =2  y2t =4  !=6T 2 ;
X SS 
S =4  2!=3T 2 ; hS ’ 0; (19)
V1T0
h; S  ni G
m2i
h; S and
iW;Z;t;h;S;
(12) where the script L (T) denotes the longitudinal (transver-
   
x2 x 3 sal) mode for W and Z. Then the full one-loop effective
G
x  log  : potential at finite temperature is the sum of (10), (12), (14),
64 2 Q2 2
and (17)
Here Q is the renormalization scale, which we take to be X
1-loop
the standard Higgs vev Q 
; and ni are the particle Veff
h; S; T  V0
h; S  ni G
m2i
h; S
degrees of freedom, which are iW;Z;t;h;S;

T 4 X
nW  6; nZ  3; nh  1;  2
ni JB;F
m2i
h; S=T 2 
(13) 2 iW;Z;t;h;S;
n  3; nS  1; nt  12: X
T
 ni f
Mi2
h; S; T3=2
The temperature-dependent part at one loop is given by 12 iW;Z;h;S;
[19]

m2i
h; S3=2 g: (20)
T 4 X
V1T
0
h; S; T  2
ni JB;F
m2i
h; S=T 2  The mass-squared values of the Goldstone bosons or the
2 iW;Z;t;h;S; Higgs-singlet eigenstates can be negative. In the case
(14) where a mass value (or more) is negative, the cubic term
in (15) becomes nonanalytic; that is not a problem since it
and is already replaced by the thermal mass in (17), where it
Z1 p













will be compensated by the thermal correction. If the
JB
  dxx2 logf1  exp  x2  g thermal correction is not enough to compensate the nega-
0 tive value, this term should be omitted since it is imaginary
4 2 2 and does not belong to the effective potential.
1 3=2
’     log ; (15)
45 12 6 32 ab
B. The space of parameters
Z1 p













In our theory, we have quite a few parameters,
JF
  dxx2 logf1  exp  x2  g
0
4 2 2
; S ; !; ; ; 2h ; 2S ;
17
’   log ; (16)
360 24 32 af in addition to the singlet vev x. As mentioned above, 2h
and 2S can be eliminated as
where ab  16 2 exp
3=2  2E , af  2 exp
3=2  
2E , and E  0:577 215 664 9 is the Euler constant. 1 @V1T0
h; S 



2h 
2  !x2  x  
 (21)
There is also another part of the effective potential which
@h h

Sx
is the ring (or daisy) contribution [20]
X 
Vring
h; S; T  
T
ni f
Mi2
h; S; T3=2
2 1 @V1T0
h; S 



12 2S  !
2   2
Sx  x  

iW;Z;h;S; 2x x @S h

Sx


m2i
h; S3=2 g; (17) (22)

where Mi2
h; S; T’s are the thermal masses of the bosons, after which our free parameters are , S , !, , , and x.
which are given by Since the theory is invariant under the discrete symmetry

x; ;  !
x;  ;  , we will assume only positive
Mi2
h; S; T  m2i
h; S  i ; (18) values for the singlet vev x. We want also to keep the
perturbativity of theory by imposing , S , j!j 1. We
and i is the thermal correction to the mass; its values for choose the parameters, , S , !, , , and x, lying in the
the bosons in our model are ranges

083522-3
AMINE AHRICHE PHYSICAL REVIEW D 75, 083522 (2007)

0:001 ; S 0:6  0:6 ! 0:6 @2 1
2 2 2

22
f  2f
1  f
1  2f   L
1  f
100 x=GeV 350  350 =GeV 350 @ 4
2

@ 2 @  2 @Veff
h;S;T 



 350 =GeV 350: (23)  2
L  2L
1  f  2 2 

@ @ g

@h h
L;SxR

The stability of the theory implies that the potential goes @ 2 @  2 @V
h;S;T  


to infinity when the field goes to the infinity in any direc-  R  2 2 eff 
 ; (27)
@ @ g x
@S h
L;SxR
tion, which implies !2 <  S . Moreover, we need any
minimum or extremum of the potential to be in the range of where   g
r; the parameter
can take any nonvanish-
the electroweak theory; let us say that all the minima and ing value of mass dimension one (for example,
, x, or
p
















extrema must be inside the circle h2  S2  f600 GeVg2
 x2 ); and the energy functional is given by
2
in the h-S plane; therefore the potential is monotonically   
increasing outside this circle in any direction. 4
Z 1 @ 2 8
Esp
T  d 4 f  2 f2
1  f2
In the standard model, the Higgs mass lower bound is g 0 @ 
given by mSM h > 114 GeV [14]. The mixing between the  2
1
2 2 @
2 2
standard Higgs and the singlet changes the couplings of the   L  2 L
1  f2
standard Higgs to all the SM sector (gauge bosons and 2
2 @

2  2
leptons), and therefore this bound is not viable. In our 1 x 2 @
  R
work, we will not derive the new lower bound for the 2
2 @
Higgs mass, but we will restrict ourselves only with masses 
2
m1;2 in the range 65 to 450 GeV.  2 4 fVeff

L; xR; T  Veff

; x; Tg ; (28)
g

III. SPHALERON IN THE SMS with the boundary conditions (see Appendix A)
In order to find the sphaleron solution for this model, we for   0 f  2 for  ! 1 f!1
follow the same steps as in the SU
2L model. Applying (29)
L L!1
Euler-Lagrange conditions on the effective Lagrangian,
(12) or (20), we find the field equations: R  a  b 2 ; R ! 1:
1 Let us now compare the energy functional (28) to that of
@ Fq  gqab Ab Fa 
 g2 h2 Aq  0
4 the minimal standard model [Eq. (10) in [7] ]. The differ-
1 @ (24) ence between these quantities is of course the contribution
@2 h  g2 hAa Aa  Veff
; S; T  0 of the singlet, which contains the kinetic term, the mixing
4 @h
@ with the standard Higgs, and a contribution to the potential
@2 S  Veff
; S; T  0: term. However, if we compare (28) with the same quantity
@S
in the MSSM case [Eq. (2.22) in [10] ], we find that in the
We will work in the orthogonal gauge where MSSM both Higgs fields, h1 and h2 , have similar contri-
butions to the sphaleron energy, and its general form
A0  0; xi Ai  0: (25) remains invariant under h1 $ h2 . However, this is not the
case for (28) if h $ S, because of a missing term like
We will not use the spherically symmetric ansatz for
R2
1  f2 .5
f; Ai g in [7], but another equivalent one [21],
For the MSSM sphaleron energy, its form is invariant
 
aij xj h 0 under h1 $ h2 , and it scales like f
21 
22 g1=2 ; and for our
Aai
x  2
1  f
r H
x  p



; model SMS, a similar invariance is absent. Could it
gr2 2 1 (26)
nevertheless be that Esp / f
2 
x  x0 2 g1=2 ? We will
h 
L
r S
x  xR
r:
check this in the next section.
Here
and x are the Higgs and singlet vevs in the general When comparing (28) with the same quantity for the
case (zero or nonzero temperature). Then one can rewrite next-to-supersymmetric standard model (NMSSM);
the field equations (24) as4 [Eq. (2.20) in [23]; after eliminating explicit CP phases],
we find no large difference expect for what comes from the
4
fact that the NMSSM contains a doublet more than the
There is a similar work done in [22], however there is a
difference in the definition in the theory parameters, and also
5
there is an error on the right-hand side of the first equation in To be more precise, the absence of a mixing between the
(19) in this paper, where the term u2 =
2 should be corrected as singlet and the gauge field is not the only reason to spoil this
u2 =V 2 according to his notation. In our notation it is the term invariance, but this invariance is absent also in the tree-level

2 =
2 in the first equation in (27). potential.

083522-4
WHAT IS THE CRITERION FOR A STRONG FIRST . . . PHYSICAL REVIEW D 75, 083522 (2007)
TABLE I. Representative parameter values and the corre- From Table I, set (A) satisfies both conditions (2) and
sponding values of the scalar masses, critical temperature, and (5), (D) does not satisfy either of them, and both (B) and
different ratios needed for the criterion of a strong first-order (C) satisfy (5) but not (2).
phase transition. The profiles of the functions f, L, and R are shown in
A B C D Fig. 1.
From all cases in Fig. 1, we remark that the singlet
0.4000 0.4000 0.5000 0.4150 profile is not much different than the unity, due to the
0.4003 0.4200 0.4100 0.5500
S Neumann-type boundary at r  0. This comes from the
! 0.3818 0.2818 0.3818 0.3000
fact that the singlet couples to the Higgs doublet and not
x=GeV 200 250 350 350
the gauge fields. Then we claim that the singlet contribu-
=GeV 38:89 38.89 38.89 194.44
=GeV 272:22 194:44 272:22 300
tion to the sphaleron energy (28) should be small compared
m1 =GeV 178.00 204.00 244.74 203.05 to doublet and gauge field contributions.
m2 =GeV 311.92 269.80 333.96 318.80
Tc =GeV 141.55 241.34 389.94 270.08 IV. THE PHASE TRANSITION IN THE SMS
Esp
0=GeV 9618.6 9721.3 9883.3 9726.6 In Ref. [16], the authors have studied the EWPT strength

c =Tc 1.680 0.838 0.495 0.386 using the same tree-level potential as (10) with some

c =Tc 3.138 1.232 1.436 0.703 differences in the parameter definitions. They easily got a
Esp
Tc =Tc 64.851 32.980 20.459 13.577 strong first-order phase transition even for Higgs masses
much larger than (4). Of course they used the criterion (5)
SMS; and we remark also similar equations of motion instead of (3), where the quantity
c is replaced by
c 
and also similar boundary conditions. f
2c 
xc  x0c 2 g1=2 . Since
c =Tc 
c =Tc is always ful-
The analytic solution of the system (27) is not possible, filled, the phase transition gets stronger for a larger pa-
this should be done numerically. To solve this system rameter space compared with the minimal standard model
numerically, we need to transform it into a system of 6 case.
first-order differential equations, and therefore we have a Let us take a random choice of about 3000 parameters in
first-order two-point boundary problem, then we use the the ranges (23), and make a comparison between the two
so-called relaxation method to solve it. This method is well different criteria of the strong first-order phase transition
explained in Sec. 17.3 of [24]. (5) and (2). We show the plots of the quantities
c =Tc and
As an example, we solve the system (27) for four chosen Esp
Tc =Tc as functions of the lightest Higgs mass m1 in
sets of parameters (A, B, C, and D); and then we can Fig. 2.
compute the sphaleron energy (28) at any temperature T Comparing the number of points above and below the
Tc . All the results for sets A, B, C, and D are summarized in dash-dotted line in both cases (a) and (b) in Fig. 2, we
Table I. remark that the first-order phase transition is stronger than
that of the standard model with both criteria. However,
1
R
(A) 1 (B) according to the large number of points below the dash-
0.8 0.8 R dotted in (a), there are a lot of points which satisfy (5) but
L L
0.6 f 0.6
they do not really give a strong first-order phase transition
f
according to (2).
0.4 0.4
When comparing the points in Fig. 2(a) with the curve
0.2 0.2
which represents the standard model case, we remark that
0
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06
0
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06
the addition of a singlet increases, in general, the quantity
r (GeV-1) r (GeV-1) Esp
Tc =Tc which is relevant to the phase transition
1 (C) 1 (D)
R strength, that there are even a large number of points above
R
0.8
L
0.8
L the line Esp
Tc =Tc  45.
0.6 f 0.6 f The passage from the criterion (2), which is model
0.4 0.4 independent, to (3), was based on two assumptions [11]:
0.2 0.2
(I) The sphaleron energy Esp
T scales like the vev


T.6
0 0
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 (II) The sphaleron energy at T  0 is taken to be 1.87 in
r (GeV-1) r (GeV-1)
units of 4
=g.
FIG. 1. (A), (B), (C), and (D) represent the profiles of the
functions f, L, and R for the sets of parameters A, B, C, and D in
Table I, respectively. The continuous lines represent the profiles
6
at zero temperature and the dashed ones represent the profiles of As mentioned above, this was verified for the standard model
the functions at finite temperature. [9] and the minimal supersymmetric standard model [10].

083522-5
AMINE AHRICHE PHYSICAL REVIEW D 75, 083522 (2007)
1.01 1
140 (A) (B)
(a) 1 0.95

120 0. 9
0.99
0.85
100 0.98
0. 8
0.97
0.75
80
ESp /Tc

0.96 0. 7

60 0.95 0.65
70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 170 180 190 200 210 220 230 240 250
T (GeV) T (GeV)
40 0.94 1
(C) (D)
0.92 0.9
20
0. 9
0.8
0.88
0 0.7
0.86
50 100 150 200 250 300 0.6
m1 0.84
0.5
0.82
(b) 0. 8 0.4
8 0.78 0.3
320 330 340 350 360 370 380 390 200 210 220 230 240 250 260 270

T (GeV) T (GeV)
6
FIG. 3. The solid line denotes the ratio

T=
, the dashed one
Ω c /Tc

denotes

T=
, and the dot-dashed one denotes Esp
T=Esp
0.
4 All of the plots end at the critical temperature.

2
the ratio Esp
T=Esp
0 is very close to

T=

0; however
it is different a bit from 1 at Tc . At the temperature T ’
0 204:5 GeV, there exists a secondary first-order phase tran-
50 100 150 200 250 300
sition; it happens on the axis h  0, where the false vac-
m1 uum
0; x0  is changed suddenly. In the case (C), the ratio
Esp
T=Esp
0 is closer to

T=

0 than to

T=

0; it
FIG. 2. For the points above the dash-dotted lines in (a) and
(b), the electroweak phase transition is strongly first-order ac- is also different from 1 at Tc . In the last case (D), there is
cording to (2) and (5), respectively. In (a), the continuous curve also a secondary first-order phase transition around T ’
represents Esp
Tc =Tc as a function of the Higgs mass for the 256 GeV, where the true vacuum

; x changes discontin-
case of the standard model. uously. We cannot call this an EWPT because the scalar h
has already developed its vev. The ratio Esp
T=Esp
0 is
still scaling like

T=

0, but significantly different from
If assumption (I) is satisfied in our model SMS, i.e.
1 at Tc .
Esp
T /

T, and Esp
0 ’ 1:87  4

0=g, then (5)
It is clear that Esp
T does not scale like

T, but
is the condition of a strong first-order phase transition, but
roughly speaking it scales like

T, with a little deviation
this not the case as mentioned above.
in some cases.
In general, the value of the sphaleron energy at zero
We claimed previously that the contribution of the sin-
temperature is significantly different from 1.87 in units of
glet S to the sphaleron energy is small, and therefore this
[4

0=g], thus if assumption (I) is fulfilled, then the
may be the reason why Esp
T does not behave like

T,
criterion (5) is still viable but should be relaxed as
and also does not behave exactly like

T. In order to

c =Tc * 1  , where  describes the deviation from
assumption (II). estimate the effect of the singlet field S on the sphaleron
In order to probe assumption (I) for our case, i.e. energy (28), we compute the sphaleron energy (28) with
replacing the singlet S by its vev x, which we denote
E sp
T. Then the fifth term in (28) disappears and the third
Esp
T /

T; (30)
equation in (24) and (27) disappears also; the problem is
reduced to a SU
2L Higgs-gauge system [7], but with a
we take sets (A), (B), (C), and (D) used in Table I in the modified potential V eff
h  Veff
h; x; T. We find that the
previous section, and plot the ratios

T=

0, singlet S gives a negative contribution to the sphaleron


T=

0, and Esp
T=Esp
0 as functions of tempera- energy which is larger at higher temperatures. The contri-
ture, which lies between the critical temperature and an- bution size is, generally, negligible. The maximum contri-
other value. The results are shown in Fig. 3. bution in the case (A) is less or equals 2.1%, less than 1.1%
Let us here comment on Fig. 3. For the case of (A), the for case (B), and almost zero in case (C) (it is less than
ratio Esp
T=Esp
0 is close to both

T=

0 and 0.08%), and this is expected because the function R in


T=

0, which is almost 1 at Tc . For the case of (B), Fig. 1(C) is very close to 1. In case (D), there are two

083522-6
WHAT IS THE CRITERION FOR A STRONG FIRST . . . PHYSICAL REVIEW D 75, 083522 (2007)
140 140

120 120

100 100

ESp(Tc )/Tc
ESp(Tc)/Tc

80 80

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
Ωc/Tc υc /Tc

FIG. 4. Esp
Tc =Tc vs
c =Tc for 3000 randomly chosen sets of FIG. 5. Esp
Tc =Tc vs
c =Tc for 3000 randomly chosen sets of
parameters. parameters.

different phases: at the first one before the secondary phase problem as the SM case (in case of one doublet) with
transition, i.e. Tc > T > 256 GeV, the singlet contribution replacing the singlet by its vev, and look for the Higgs
is significant (between 8  9%); this may be due to the vev in the path @Veff
h; S=@SjSx  0; whether it is larger
smallness of the Higgs doublet vev at this range. While in than the critical temperature i.e.,
c =Tc  1.
the second phase T < 256 GeV, the singlet contribution, as With this modified potential V eff
h  Veff
h; SjSx ,
in the other cases, is less than 2%. Then in the absence of the EWPT can be obtained easily as done by the authors
secondary first-order phase transitions, we can neglect the in [25].
singlet contribution, but in its presence the singlet contri-
bution can be sizable but not as large as that of the Higgs
V. CONCLUSION
doublet or gauge fields.
To justify this picture, we take again 3000 random sets In this paper, the electroweak phase transition for the
of parameters and plot Esp
Tc =Tc as a function of
c =Tc standard model with a singlet is studied using the known
in Fig. 4. criteria in the literature in addition to the model-
Since there exist too many points in the region independent criterion found in [8]. The authors [16,17]
(Esp
Tc =Tc 45 \

Tc =Tc  1), the criterion (5) is found that the EWPT gets stronger even for Higgs masses
not the definition of a strong first-order EWPT. However, above the bound (4). They modified the simple criterion (3)
it is satisfied for all points that give really a strong first- into (5), where they replaced the Higgs vev by the distance
order EWPT except for 10 points due to the existence of between the two degenerate minima in the h-S plan.
secondary first-order phase transitions. Then we are now In our work, we checked whether this criterion is viable
sure that (5) does not describe a strong first-order EWPT. for this kind of model or not. We took the standard model
In the sphaleron transitions, the singlet S has no relation with a real singlet, then we studied the EWPT using the
to lepton or baryon number breaking phenomena. It does sphaleron configuration at the critical temperature, then we
not couple to fermions or gauge bosons; it is just a com- checked whether all the steps of the passage from the
pensating field in the field equations, (24) and (27), and its model-independent criterion (2) to (3) in the standard
effect on the sphaleron transition is negligible as shown model case are respected for our model [i.e. the passage
above. Then we claim that only the Higgs doublet vev is from (2) to (5)] or not.
relevant for the phase transition strength. We found that the EWPT gets stronger even for Higgs
We take 3000 random sets of parameters used previ- masses larger than 100 GeV; and this model does not suffer
ously, and plot Esp
Tc =Tc as a function of
c =Tc in Fig. 5. from the severe Higgs mass bound (4). However, we
It is clear that Esp
Tc =Tc scales almost exactly7 like remarked that a sizable number of the parameter sets

c =Tc , and (3) can describe the strong first-order EWPT satisfy the modified criterion but do not really give a strong
criterion for most of the points. Then when studying the first-order EWPT; this allowed us to conclude that the
EWPT in models with a gauge singlet, one should treat the ‘‘modified criterion’’ is not the criterion that describes a
strong first-order EWPT.
In order to understand why this modified criterion is not
7 viable in this case, we returned back to the SM to see how
This is always true except some points due to the existence of
secondary first-order phase transitions; or due to the significant the passage from the model-independent criterion to the
singlet contribution to the sphaleron energy; especially for simpler one proceeds. We found that the two assumptions
smaller Higgs vev values. needed for the passage to the simpler criterion are not

083522-7
AMINE AHRICHE PHYSICAL REVIEW D 75, 083522 (2007)
fulfilled, in general, in our model SMS: APPENDIX A: THE BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
(i) The sphaleron energy at zero temperature is different
To find the boundary conditions of (27), one should take
from the value 1.87 in units of (4
=g).
into account that the energy functional (28) should be
(ii) The sphaleron energy at finite temperature does not
finite. It is clear that, in order for the contributions of the
scale like

T.
second and fourth terms in (28) to be finite, f must go to
We guess that the reason for this is that the singlet does
unity at the limit  ! 1. According to the sphaleron
not couple to the gauge field, then missing some contribu-
definition, scalars go to their vacuum at the infinity, i.e.
tions to the sphaleron energy like R2
1  f2 in (28), can
L, R ! 1 when  ! 1, which makes the last term con-
spoil the scaling law, Esp
T /

T. This can be inspired
tribution to (28) finite. Thus, one can write all the functions
if we compare this situation with the case of the MSSM, as 1  ci expfdi g, and find the values of ci and di by
where this scaling law does work; and the general form of inserting this behavior into the differential equations (27).
the sphaleron energy is invariant under h1 $ h2 . The fact In the limit   0, let us assume that the functions f, L,
that the singlet does couple only to the Higgs doublet leads and R have the profiles
to a singlet profile in the sphaleron configuration in a
Neumann type at r  0, which makes the singlet contri- f
   nf L
  c1   nL R
  c2   nR ;
bution too small. Another important remark is that the (A1)
possibility of secondary first-order phase transitions can,
sometimes, spoil this scaling law. where nf , nL , and nR are some positive constants. In this
As a conclusion, we can say that the condition
c =Tc  limit, (27) can be approximated as
1 is not valid as a strongly first-order phase transition @2 2 1
2 2 @2 2 @ 2
criterion. But the usual condition
c =Tc  1 is still the f ’ f  L L’ L 2L
viable one, which can describe the strong first-order phase @ 2 2 4
2 @ 2  @ 


transition for the majority of the physically allowed pa- @2
2 @ 1 @Veff
h; S; T 


R’ R 2 2 
 :
rameters as stated in Fig. 5. Moreover, this can be satisfied @ 2  @ g x
@S h
L
SxR
even for Higgs masses in excess of 100 GeV unlike in the
standard model. (A2)
Then in such a model where the singlets couple only to From the second equation in (A2), one can easily con-
the Higgs doublets, it is convenient to study the EWPT clude that L   or  2 , however the second choice
within an effective model that contains only doublets, makes the energy functional integral (28) divergent, thus
where the singlets are replaced by their vevs. We expect L   or fc1  0; nL  1g. Using this result, one can con-
a similar conclusion for models like the next-to-minimal clude from first equation in (A2) that f   2 . However, the
supersymmetric standard model (NMSSM), where in this situation is different for the last equation (A2), then one
model the singlet couples only to the two Higgs doublets, can make
and its profile is a Neumann type in the sphaleron configu- 
ration. Then the criterion for a strong first-order EWPT is 1 @Veff
h; S; T 



  a 2  fA  b 2 gR

f
21 
22 g1=2 =T  1 at the critical temperature, instead of
2
g x
2 @S h
L
SxR

f
21 
22 
x  x0 2 g1=2 =T  1.  BR2
  CR3
: (A3)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Inserting (A1) in (A3), one finds that the only possibilities
are nR  1 and nR  2, where the first choice is ex-
I want to thank Mikko Laine for useful remarks and cluded in order that the energy functional integral (28) be
corrections in the manuscript. The author is supported by convergent, thus R  a  b 2 . Therefore at   0, R sat-
DFG. isfies the boundary condition of Neumann type, while f
and L satisfy those of Dirichlet type. The boundary con-
ditions are summarized in (29).

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