Electroweak Thermal Histories in the Minimal Type-II Seesaw Model with a Renormalization Group-Improved Effective Potential

Abstract

We study electroweak thermal histories in the minimal type-II seesaw model with a renormalization group-improved finite-temperature effective potential. The commonly used criterion $v_c/T_c>1$, with $v_c$ the broken-phase field at the critical temperature $T_c$, applied to every first-order degeneracy of the neutral-field phase structure in our survey, does not identify a strong electroweak phase transition. Treating those degeneracies as completed transitions would assign them a gravitational-wave signal they have not been shown to produce. Transitions that do nucleate, percolate and complete are found for the model. They are weak and fast, too weak on the standard sphaleron estimate to protect a baryon asymmetry from washout. Their sound wave spectra lie far below the sensitivity of planned space detectors. Their properties depend strongly on the renormalization group improvement and on the renormalization scale.