TASI lectures on Phase Transitions, Baryogenesis, and Gravitational Waves

Understand

These lectures, presented at the 2022 TASI summer school, give an introductory overview of first-order phase transitions in the early Universe, baryogenesis, and the resulting gravitational wave phenomenology.

• We introduce thermal field theory via the imaginary time formalism, and comment on the pitfalls of 1-loop calculations and alternative approaches.
• Then, we discuss how to calculate the false vacuum decay rate in first order phase transitions, of which we give various examples in theories beyond the Standard Model.
• Baryogenesis is presented via the Sakharov conditions, and how they are met in important classes of examples.