17–21 Aug 2026
University of Helsinki Main Building
Europe/Helsinki timezone

Soft fluctuations and higher-dimensional operators affect bubble wall dynamics

19 Aug 2026, 17:20
20m
F4050 (4th floor) (University of Helsinki Main Building)

F4050 (4th floor)

University of Helsinki Main Building

University of Helsinki Fabianinkatu 33 Finland
poster Early universe physics, inflation, electroweak phase transitions, and sources for gravitational waves Poster Session

Speaker

Salma Kämpf (University of Geneva)

Description

We investigate the dynamics of first-order phase transitions by studying the impact of both soft fluctuations and higher-dimensional operators on bubble wall velocities. Focusing on Higgs–gauge theories, we compute the bubble wall velocity using a finite-temperature effective theory with a cubic scalar potential supplemented by a dimension-six operator. We further incorporate next-to-leading-order corrections from soft fluctuations through the scalar-field Green’s function and connect our results to ultraviolet completions such as $\mathrm{SU}(2)$ + Higgs theory. Finally, we compare the quantitative importance of higher-order corrections in the soft sector with that of hard-scale-induced higher-dimensional operators, clarifying their respective roles in determining bubble wall dynamics.

Author

Salma Kämpf (University of Geneva)

Co-author

Philipp Schicho (University of Geneva)

Presentation materials

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