Related papers: Cosmic phase transitions: their applications and e…
In this lecture at a school for condensed matter physicists, I begin with basic concepts and tools for investigating phase transitions in quantum field theory. The very different roles of global and gauge symmetries in phase transitions…
Physical processes related to cosmological first-order phase transitions are discussed and reviewed in this introductory part of dissertation. I first describe cosmological phase transitions on a general level, concentrating on bubble…
The sequence of phase transitions during the hot history of the universe is followed within a phenomenological framework. Particular emphasis is put on the QCD confinement transition, which is at reach under earth laboratory conditions. A…
We review briefly the current status of thermal phase transitions within the Standard Model and its simplest extensions. We start with an update on QCD thermodynamics, then discuss the electroweak phase transition, particularly in…
The evolution of the Universe is the ultimate laboratory to study fundamental physics across energy scales that span about 25 orders of magnitude: from the grand unification scale through particle and nuclear physics scales down to the…
In this proceedings contribution we discuss the fate of the electroweak and the quantum chromodynamics phase transitions relevant for the early stage of the universe at non-zero temperature. These phase transitions are related to the Higgs…
During the past two decades, cosmologists turned to particle physics in order to explore the physics of the very early Universe. The main link between the physics of the smallest and largest structures in the Universe is the idea of…
In these lectures I discuss cosmological phase transitions with the goal of establishing the possibility of observational consequences. I argue that the {\em only} phase transition amenable of experimental study within the foreseeable…
Vacuum energy changes during cosmological phase transitions and becomes relatively important at epochs just before phase transitions. For a viable cosmology the vacuum energy just after a phase transition must be set by the critical…
We investigate the properties of a cosmological scenario which undergoes a gravitational phase transition at late times. In this scenario, the Universe evolves according to general relativity in the standard, hot Big Bang picture until a…
The physics of the 20th Century is governed by two pillars, Einstein's relativity principle and the quantum principle. At the beginning of the 21st Century, it becomes clear that there exist the smallest units of matter, such as electrons,…
Topological defects are thought to be left behind by the cosmological phase transitions which occur as the universe expands and cools. Similar processes can be studied in the phase transitions which take place in the laboratory:…
We study numerically the real-time history of the cosmological electroweak phase transition, as it may take place in the Standard Model or in MSSM for m_H < m_W according to recent lattice results. We follow the nucleated bubbles from the…
Cosmological phase transitions are predicted by Particle Physics models, and have a variety of important cosmological consequences, which depend strongly on the dynamics of the transition. In this work we investigate in detail the general…
Cosmological phase transitions are thought to have taken place at the early Universe imprinting their properties on the observable Universe. There is strong evidence that, through the dynamics of a scalar field that lead a second order…
We study first order phase transitions that occur when the temperature of the system increases and we identify the conditions that lead to super-heating, a phase where the system can heat up arbitrarily. First order phase transitions with…
In this paper, the cosmic phase transition is investigated by background gauge field method. As a continuation of previous our work, some numerical results and graphic solutions at $T\neq 0$ are presented. Hence the mechanism of cosmic…
We consider first-order phase transitions of the Universe in the radiation-dominated era. We argue that in general the velocity of interfaces is non-relativistic due to the interaction with the plasma and the release of latent heat. We…
A brief outline is given of the description of phase transition kinetics in condensed matter systems with a continuous symmetry, emphasising the roles of dissipation, coarse-graining and scaling. The possible relevance of these ideas to the…
The cosmological QCD phase transition is studied in terms of the color confinement at finite temperature using the dual Higgs theory of QCD. The confinement force is largely reduced at high temperature, which leads to the swelling of…