Oscillons in Models of Electroweak Symmetry Breaking?*

One major focus of contemporary fundamental physics is understanding the origin of the Higgs mass and the mechanism behind electroweak symmetry breaking. A novel approach to this problem is to investigate the fine tuning of Standard Model parameters by studying the dynamics of the phase transition.  When other degrees of freedom are coupled to the Higgs, as is common in many extensions of the standard model, the electroweak phase transition can exhibit non-linear physics that might lead to non-trivial phenomenology.  Here we employ cosmological lattice simulations to study the degrees of freedom that would have participated in such a scenario. We investigate a simple model wherein the Higgs field is coupled to a scalar modulus (possibly inflaton) field, which leads to rich field dynamics. Specifically, we are interested in investigating the formation of oscillons (non-linear, stable solutions). Do they form and do they decay? Understanding these structures allows us to better understand the limitations of these models to explain electroweak symmetry breaking.