Nonperturbative Decoupling of Massive Fermions.

SU(2) gauge theory with N_{f}=24 massless fermions is noninteracting at long distances, i.e., it has an infrared fixed point at vanishing coupling. With massive fermions, the fermions are expected to decouple at energy scales below the fermion mass, and the infrared behavior is that of confining SU(2) pure gauge theory. We demonstrate this behavior nonperturbatively with lattice Monte Carlo simulations by measuring the gradient flow running coupling.

New Solutions for Non-Abelian Cosmic Strings.

We study the properties of classical vortex solutions in a non-Abelian gauge theory. A system of two adjoint Higgs fields breaks the SU(2) gauge symmetry to Z_{2}, producing 't Hooft-Polyakov monopoles trapped on cosmic strings, termed beads; there are two charges of monopole and two degenerate string solutions. The strings break an accidental discrete Z_{2} symmetry of the theory, explaining the degeneracy of the ground state. Further symmetries of the model, not previously appreciated, emerge when the masses of the two adjoint Higgs fields are degenerate. The breaking of the enlarged discrete symmetry gives rise to additional string solutions and splits the monopoles into four types of "semipole": kink solutions that interpolate between the string solutions, classified by a complex gauge-invariant magnetic flux and a Z_{4} charge. At special values of the Higgs self-couplings, the accidental symmetry broken by the string is continuous, giving rise to supercurrents on the strings. The SU(2) theory can be embedded in a wide class of grand unified theories (GUTs), including SO(10). We argue that semipoles and supercurrents are generic on GUT strings.

Sphaleron rate in the minimal standard model.

We use large-scale lattice simulations to compute the rate of baryon number violating processes (the sphaleron rate), the Higgs field expectation value, and the critical temperature in the standard model across the electroweak phase transition temperature. While there is no true phase transition between the high-temperature symmetric phase and the low-temperature broken phase, the crossover is sharp and located at temperature T(c) = (159.5 ± 1.5) GeV. The sphaleron rate in the symmetric phase (T>T(c)) is Γ/T(4) = (18 ± 3)α(W)(5), and in the broken phase in the physically interesting temperature range 130 GeV < T < T(c) it can be parametrized as log(Γ/T(4)) = (0.83 ± 0.01)T/GeV-(147.7 ± 1.9). The freeze-out temperature in the early Universe, where the Hubble rate wins over the baryon number violation rate, is T* = (131.7 ± 2.3) GeV. These values, beyond being intrinsic properties of the standard model, are relevant for, e.g., low-scale leptogenesis scenarios.

Lattice study of the jet quenching parameter.

We present a first-principle computation of the jet quenching parameter, which describes the momentum broadening of a high-energy parton moving through the deconfined state of QCD matter at high temperature. Following an idea originally proposed by Caron-Huot, we explain how one can evaluate the soft contribution to the collision kernel characterizing this real-time phenomenon, analyzing certain gauge-invariant operators in a dimensionally reduced effective theory (electrostatic QCD), which can be studied nonperturbatively via simulations on a Euclidean lattice. Our high-precision numerical computations at two different temperatures indicate that soft contributions to the jet quenching parameter are large. After discussing the systematic uncertainties involved, we present a quantitative estimate for the jet quenching parameter in the temperature range accessible at heavy-ion colliders, and compare it to results from phenomenological models as well as to strong-coupling computations based on the holographic correspondence.

Gravitational waves from the sound of a first order phase transition.

We report on the first three-dimensional numerical simulations of first-order phase transitions in the early Universe to include the cosmic fluid as well as the scalar field order parameter. We calculate the gravitational wave (GW) spectrum resulting from the nucleation, expansion, and collision of bubbles of the low-temperature phase, for phase transition strengths and bubble wall velocities covering many cases of interest. We find that the compression waves in the fluid continue to be a source of GWs long after the bubbles have merged, a new effect not taken properly into account in previous modeling of the GW source. For a wide range of models, the main source of the GWs produced by a phase transition is, therefore, the sound the bubbles make.