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Electroweak phase transition in SMEFT: Gravitational wave and collider complementarity

Sahabub Jahedi, Indrajit Saha, Abhik Sarkar

TL;DR

The paper investigates FO-EWPT in SMEFT through three dimension-6 Higgs-potential–modifying operators, linking the cosmological GW signal to collider probes via di-Higgs production. It computes the finite-temperature effective potential, analyzes bubble nucleation, and characterizes the GW spectrum with transition parameters, highlighting the dominance of sound waves and detectability by future GW missions. On the collider side, it assesses di-Higgs production at HL-LHC and HE-LHC using an EFT implementation, advanced event simulation, and an ANN-based classifier to enhance sensitivity in the 2b2τ final state, showing that HE-LHC substantially extends the accessible SMEFT parameter space associated with FO-EWPT. The work emphasizes the complementarity between GW observations and collider searches: GW data map cosmological implications of the Higgs sector, while collider measurements pin down the microscopic operators, together providing a robust test of SMEFT-driven FO-EWPT scenarios.

Abstract

We study the electroweak first-order electroweak phase transition (FO-EWPT) within the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT) framework induced by dimension-6 operators. Such phenomena can be probed independently via \textit{di}-Higgs production at the collider experiments as well as via the detection of gravitational waves (GW). There are three dimension-6 SMEFT operators that simultaneously modify the Higgs potential at tree level and contribute to the \textit{di}-Higgs production at the hadron colliders. With \textit{di}-Higgs production being suppressed at current LHC runs, we aim to probe this production at high luminosity (HL) and high energy (HE) runs of the LHC to achieve better sensitivity of dimension-6 SMEFT operators. The correlations among these operators are analyzed in the context of probing FO-EWPT, emphasizing the complementarity between future GW observations and upgraded LHC searches.

Electroweak phase transition in SMEFT: Gravitational wave and collider complementarity

TL;DR

The paper investigates FO-EWPT in SMEFT through three dimension-6 Higgs-potential–modifying operators, linking the cosmological GW signal to collider probes via di-Higgs production. It computes the finite-temperature effective potential, analyzes bubble nucleation, and characterizes the GW spectrum with transition parameters, highlighting the dominance of sound waves and detectability by future GW missions. On the collider side, it assesses di-Higgs production at HL-LHC and HE-LHC using an EFT implementation, advanced event simulation, and an ANN-based classifier to enhance sensitivity in the 2b2τ final state, showing that HE-LHC substantially extends the accessible SMEFT parameter space associated with FO-EWPT. The work emphasizes the complementarity between GW observations and collider searches: GW data map cosmological implications of the Higgs sector, while collider measurements pin down the microscopic operators, together providing a robust test of SMEFT-driven FO-EWPT scenarios.

Abstract

We study the electroweak first-order electroweak phase transition (FO-EWPT) within the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT) framework induced by dimension-6 operators. Such phenomena can be probed independently via \textit{di}-Higgs production at the collider experiments as well as via the detection of gravitational waves (GW). There are three dimension-6 SMEFT operators that simultaneously modify the Higgs potential at tree level and contribute to the \textit{di}-Higgs production at the hadron colliders. With \textit{di}-Higgs production being suppressed at current LHC runs, we aim to probe this production at high luminosity (HL) and high energy (HE) runs of the LHC to achieve better sensitivity of dimension-6 SMEFT operators. The correlations among these operators are analyzed in the context of probing FO-EWPT, emphasizing the complementarity between future GW observations and upgraded LHC searches.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 12 sections, 39 equations, 9 figures, 3 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Higgs potential and SMEFT
  3. First order electroweak phase transition
  4. Gravitational wave spectrum
  5. Constraints from existing collider studies
  6. Trilinear Higgs self-coupling modifier
  7. Constraints on other SMEFT operators
  8. Di-Higgs production at future LHC runs
  9. Signal-background simulation
  10. ANN-based classifier
  11. Signal Significance
  12. Conclusion

Figures (9)

  • Figure 1: Variation of the potential at, above, and below the critical temperature $T_c$ for the BP1 listed in Table \ref{['tab:bp']}.
  • Figure 2: Left panel: Resultant GW spectra from FO-EWPT for different BPs listed in Table \ref{['tab:bp']}; right panel: individual contribution to the GW spectra from bubble collision, sound wave, and plasma turbulence for BP1.
  • Figure 3: Expected SNR in future GW experiments such as LISA (left), DECIGO (middle) and BBO (right). Top panel: $C_H/\Lambda^2-C_{HD}/\Lambda^2$ plane with $C_{H\Box}/\Lambda^2=0$; bottom panel: $C_H/\Lambda^2-C_{H\Box}/\Lambda^2$ plane with $C_{HD}/\Lambda^2=0$.
  • Figure 4: Feynman graphs concerning Higgs pair production (SM and EFT contributions) via gluon-gluon fusion (ggF) production mode at the LHC. The black node represents the effective vertex.
  • Figure 5: The kinematic variable correlations for signal and background processes for HL-LHC (14 TeV 3 ab$^{-1}$) and HE-LHC (27 TeV 15 ab$^{-1}$).
  • ...and 4 more figures