Speaker
Description
Singlet extensions of the Standard Model (SM) provide unique test of the paradigm of strongly first order electroweak phase transition (EWPhT). We study the real singlet extension of the SM with spontaneous $Z_2$-breaking, and its impact on the strength of the electroweak phase transition as well as the corresponding phenomenology. We find various phase transition patterns rendering a strongly first order EWPhT. After including the corresponding one loop zero temperature and thermal corrections, we identify the regions of parameter space with a strong EWPhT, that require a rather light real scalar. Phenomenologically, Higgs exotic decays, together with constraints from precision measurement of the Higgs properties at the LHC, provide the ultimate probe of such an SM extension.
