The electroweak phase transition broke the electroweak symmetry. Perturbative methods used to calculate observables related to this phase transition suffer from severe problems such as gauge dependence, infrared divergences, and a breakdown of perturbation theory. In this paper we develop robust perturbative tools for dealing with phase transitions. We argue that gauge and infrared problems are absent in a consistent power-counting. We calculate the finite temperature effective potential to two loops for general gauge-fixing parameters in a generic model. We demonstrate gauge invariance, and perform numerical calculations for the Standard Model in Fermi gauge.

We consider a class of minimal anomaly free U(1) extensions of the Standard Model with three generations of right-handed neutrinos and a complex scalar. Using electroweak precision constraints, new 13 TeV LHC data, and considering theoretical limitations such as perturbativity, we show that it is possible to constrain a wide class of models. By classifying these models with a single parameter, κ, we can put a model independent upper bound on the new U(1) gauge coupling g z . We find that the new dilepton data puts strong bounds on the parameters, especially in the mass region M Z 3 TeV.

We present a gauge-invariant framework for bubble nucleation in theories with radiative symmetry breaking at high temperature. As a procedure, this perturbative framework establishes a practical, gauge-invariant computation of the leading order nucleation rate, based on a consistent power counting in the high-temperature expansion. In model building and particle phenomenology, this framework has applications such as the computation of the bubble nucleation temperature and the rate for electroweak baryogenesis and gravitational wave signals from cosmic phase transitions.

We study the collider phenomenology of a neutral gauge boson Z arising in minimal but anomalous U(1) extensions of the Standard Model (SM). To retain gauge invariance of physical observables, we consider cancellation of gauge anomalies through the Green-Schwarz mechanism. We categorize a wide class of U(1) extensions in terms of the new U(1) charges of the left-handed quarks and leptons and the Higgs doublet. We derive constraints on some benchmark models using electroweak precision constraints and the latest 13 TeV LHC dilepton and dijet resonance search data. We calculate the decay rates of the exotic and rare one-loop Z decays to ZZ and Z-photon modes, which are the unique signatures of our framework. If observed, these decays could hint at anomaly cancellation through the Green-Schwarz mechanism. We also discuss the possible observation of such signatures at the LHC and at future ILC colliders.

A gauge-invariant framework for computing bubble nucleation rates at finite temperature in the presence of radiative barriers was presented and advocated for model-building and phenomenological studies in an accompanying article [1]. Here, we detail this computation using the Abelian Higgs Model as an illustrative example. Subsequently, we recast this approach in the dimensionally-reduced high-temperature effective field theory for nucleation. This allows for including several higher order thermal resummations and furthermore delineate clearly the approach’s limits of validity. This approach provides for robust perturbative treatments of bubble nucleation during possible first-order cosmic phase transitions, with implications for electroweak baryogenesis and production of a stochastic gravitational wave background. Furthermore, it yields a sound comparison between results of perturbative and non-perturbative computations.