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arXiv · 2501.17593

Resolving the critical bubble in SU(8) deconfinement transition

Kari Rummukainen·Riikka Seppä·David J. Weir
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Abstract

Strongly coupled confining models with a first order phase transition present an interesting DM candidate. Near the critical temperature these models are strongly non-perturbative, and the critical bubble nucleation rate has so far only been estimated via approximative methods. As a model of a strong first order deconfinement transition, we simulate 4D SU(8) pure gauge model with multicanonical Monte Carlo. We demonstrate that resolving the critical bubble is possible in a strongly coupled model. We calculate the free energy of a critical bubble, which gives a rough upper limit for the nucleation rate. For the parameter points we investigated, the thin-wall approximation for the critial bubble free energy is off by a factor of 2, overestimating the rate at least by a factor of $e^{10}$.

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Kari Rummukainen, Riikka Seppä, David J. Weir. 2025-01-29. Resolving the critical bubble in SU(8) deconfinement transition. https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.17593

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