The Electroweak Phase Transition in Models with Gauge-Higgs Unification

Abstract

The dynamics of five dimensional Wilson line phases at finite temperature is studied in the one-loop approximation. We show that at temperatures of order $T\sim 1/L$, where L is the length of the compact space, the gauge symmetry is always restored and the electroweak phase transition appears to be of first order. We focus on a specific model where the Wilson line phase is identified with the Higgs field (gauge-Higgs unification). The transition is of first order even for values of the Higgs mass above the current experimental limit. If large localized gauge kinetic terms are present, the transition might be strong enough to give baryogenesis at the electroweak transition.