Symmetry restoration at finite temperature with weak magnetic fields

Abstract

We study symmetry restoration at finite temperature in the standard model during the electroweak phase transition in the presence of a weak magnetic field. We compute the finite temperature effective potential up to the contribution of ring diagrams, using the broken phase degrees of freedom, and keep track of the gauge parameter dependence of the results. We show that under these conditions, the phase transition becomes stronger first order.

29 pages, 13 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. D. [v2]: replaced figures 7-13 and minor corrections to typos, matches Phys. Rev. D version