Study of entropy production due to electroweak phase transition in $Z_2$ symmetric extension of the Standard Model

Abstract

In this work we consider the simple $Z_2$ symmetric extension to the Standard Model (SM) and proceed to study the nature of electroweak phase transition (EWPT) in the early universe. We show that the nature of the phase transition changes from a smooth crossover in the SM to a strong first order with this addition of the real scalar. Furthermore, we show the entropy release in this scenario is higher than that of the SM. This can lead to a strong dilution of frozen out dark matter particles and baryon asymmetry, if something existed before the onset of the phase transition.