Signals of the electroweak phase transition at colliders and gravitational wave observatories
Mikael Chala (Institute of Particle Physics Phenomenology, Physics Department, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, U.K.); Claudius Krause (IFIC, Universitat de València-CSIC, Apt. Correus 22085, València, E-46071, Spain, Theoretical Physics Department, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, IL, 60510, U.S.A.); Germano Nardini (Albert Einstein Center, Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, Bern, CH-3012, Switzerland, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Stavanger, Stavanger, N-4036, Norway)
If the electroweak phase transition (EWPT) is of strongly first order due to higher dimensional operators, the scale of new physics generating them is at the TeV scale or below. In this case the effective-field theory (EFT) neglecting operators of dimension higher than six may overlook terms that are relevant for the EWPT analysis. In this article we study the EWPT in the EFT to dimension eight. We estimate the reach of the future gravitational wave observatory LISA for probing the region in which the EWPT is strongly first order and compare it with the capabilities of the Higgs measurements via double-Higgs production at current and future colliders. We also match different UV models to the previously mentioned dimension-eight EFT and demonstrate that, from the top-down point of view, the double-Higgs production is not the best signal to explore these scenarios.
