English

Finite-temperature bubble nucleation with shifting scale hierarchies

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2025-11-14 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

Focusing on supercooled phase transitions in models with classical scale symmetry, we formulate a state-of-the art framework for computing the bubble-nucleation rate, accounting for the presence of various energy scales. In particular, we examine the limitations of derivative expansions in constructing a thermal effective field theory for bubble nucleation. We show that for gauge field fluctuations, derivative expansions diverge after the leading two orders due to the strong variation in gauge field masses between the high- and low-temperature phases. By directly computing these contributions using the fluctuation determinant, we capture these effects while also accounting for large explicit logarithms at two loops, utilising the exact renormalisation group structure of the EFT. Finally, we demonstrate how this approach significantly improves nucleation rate calculations compared to leading-order results, providing a more robust framework for predicting gravitational-wave signals from supercooled phase transitions in models such as the SU(2)cSM.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2503.13597,
  title  = {Finite-temperature bubble nucleation with shifting scale hierarchies},
  author = {Maciej Kierkla and Philipp Schicho and Bogumila Swiezewska and Tuomas V. I. Tenkanen and Jorinde van de Vis},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.13597},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Revised version, published in JHEP, 56 pages, 7 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T22:24:15.099Z