Publication

Melting of the Higgs vacuum: Conserved numbers at high temperature

Mikhail Chapochnikov
1996
Journal Articles

Abstract

We discuss the computation of the grand canonical partition sum describing hot matter in systems with the Higgs mechanism in the presence of non-zero conserved global charges. We formulate a set of simple rules for that computation in the high-temperature approximation in the limit of small chemical potentials. As an illustration of the use of these rules, we calculate the leading term in the free energy of the standard model as a function of baryon number B. We show that this quantity depends continuously on the Higgs expectation value φ, with a crossover at φ ∼ T where Debye screening overtakes the Higgs mechanism - the Higgs vacuum "melts". A number of confusions that exist in the literature regarding the B dependence of the free energy is clarified.

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/89557740-a22c-4909-9df6-363f234934ef

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Mikhail Chapochnikov
1996
Journal Articles

Abstract

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/89557740-a22c-4909-9df6-363f234934ef

About this result

Related concepts (32)

Higgs mechanism

In the Standard Model of particle physics, the Higgs mechanism is essential to explain the generation mechanism of the property "mass" for gauge bosons. Without the Higgs mechanism, all bosons (one of the two classes of particles, the other being fermions) would be considered massless, but measurements show that the W+, W−, and Z0 bosons actually have relatively large masses of around 80 GeV/c2. The Higgs field resolves this conundrum. The simplest description of the mechanism adds a quantum field (the Higgs field) which permeates all of space to the Standard Model.

Higgs boson

The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory. In the Standard Model, the Higgs particle is a massive scalar boson with zero spin, even (positive) parity, no electric charge, and no colour charge that couples to (interacts with) mass. It is also very unstable, decaying into other particles almost immediately upon generation.

Baryon number

In particle physics, the baryon number is a strictly conserved additive quantum number of a system. It is defined as where n_{\rm q} is the number of quarks, and n_{\rm \overline q} is the number of antiquarks. Baryons (three quarks) have a baryon number of +1, mesons (one quark, one antiquark) have a baryon number of 0, and antibaryons (three antiquarks) have a baryon number of −1. Exotic hadrons like pentaquarks (four quarks, one antiquark) and tetraquarks (two quarks, two antiquarks) are also classified as baryons and mesons depending on their baryon number.

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Melting of the Higgs vacuum: Conserved numbers at high temperature

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