2025/01/28 by P. Lowdon, Owe Philipsen, Lowdon, Peter +1 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Lattice (hep-lat) #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum Mechanics and Applications
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2501.17120
openalex publication_date 2025/01/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Spontaneous symmetry breaking in quantum field theories at non-zero temperature still holds fundamental open questions, in particular what happens to vacuum Goldstone bosons when the temperature is increased. By investigating a complex scalar field theory on the lattice we demonstrate that Goldstone bosons at non-zero temperature behave like screened massless particle-like excitations, so-called thermoparticles, which continue to exist even in the symmetry-restored phase of the theory. We provide non-perturbative evidence for the functional form of the Goldstone mode's dissipative behaviour, and determine its corresponding spectral properties. Since the persistence of thermal Goldstone modes within symmetry-restored phases is predicted to be a model-independent characteristic, this has fundamental consequences for systems in which continuous symmetries are restored at high temperatures.