We study the effect of higher dimension operators on the electroweak finite temperature phase transition in two sectors of the Standard Model. Firstly, the Higgs-Yukawa sector, consisting of the Higgs doublet and the massive Standard Model fermions, is studied with an approximate method, Extended Mean Field Theory. Secondly, the gauge-Higgs sector, consisting of the Higgs doublet and the gauge fields of the weak interaction, is studied using Monte Carlo simulations. In both cases we find that a cutoff scale of around 1.5 TeV is needed to make the electroweak phase transition first order at the experimental value of the Higgs boson mass, which is a requirement for making electroweak baryogenesis viable.
Categories: hep-lat hep-ph