Electroweak phase transition in nearly conformal technicolor

Abstract

We examine the temperature-dependent electroweak phase transition in extensions of the standard model in which the electroweak symmetry is spontaneously broken via strongly coupled, nearly conformal dynamics. In particular, we focus on the low energy effective theory used to describe minimal walking technicolor at the phase transition. Using the one-loop effective potential with ring improvement, we identify significant regions of parameter space which yield a sufficiently strong first-order transition for electroweak baryogenesis. The composite particle spectrum corresponding to these regions can be produced and studied at the Large Hadron Collider experiment. We note the possible emergence of a second phase transition at lower temperatures. This occurs when the underlying technicolor theory possesses a nontrivial center symmetry.