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Revising the Full One-Loop Gauge Prefactor in Electroweak Vacuum Stability
Pietro Baratella1, Miha Nemevšek1,2, Yutaro Shoji1
1Jožef Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Physical Review Letters
|February 6, 2025
Summary
Researchers revised the electroweak vacuum decay rate calculation. They corrected gauge field overcounting, slightly decreasing the vacuum
Area of Science:
- High Energy Physics
- Quantum Field Theory
- Cosmology
Background:
- The stability of the electroweak vacuum is crucial for the Standard Model of particle physics.
- Previous calculations of the vacuum decay rate involved approximations for gauge field contributions.
- Understanding vacuum stability provides insights into the early universe and fundamental physics.
Purpose of the Study:
- To refine the calculation of the electroweak vacuum decay rate by including the full one-loop prefactor.
- To accurately determine the degeneracy factors of gauge degrees of freedom using group theoretical methods.
- To correct for previously overcounted transverse modes in functional determinant calculations.
Main Methods:
- Application of group theoretical arguments to derive degeneracy factors for gauge fields.
- Recalculation of the functional determinant for gauge modes in the Standard Model.
- Incorporation of the full one-loop prefactor into the electroweak vacuum decay rate formula.
Main Results:
- Identified and corrected overcounting of transverse modes in gauge field contributions.
- The gauge fields' contribution to the prefactor was modified by 6%.
- The predicted lifetime of the electroweak vacuum is slightly decreased but remains vastly longer than the age of the Universe.
Conclusions:
- The revised calculation offers a more accurate prediction for the electroweak vacuum decay rate.
- The methodology for calculating transverse mode degeneracy is applicable to other functional determinant computations involving gauge fields in four dimensions.
- The electroweak vacuum remains stable on cosmological timescales.
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