INHOMOGENEOUS FIELD CONFIGURATIONS AND THE ELECTROWEAK PHASE-TRANSITION

We investigate the effects of inhomogeneous scalar field configuration s on the electroweak phase transition. For this purpose we calculate t he leading perturbative correction to the wave function correction ter m Z(phi, T), i.e., the kinetic term in the effective action, for the e lectroweak standard model at finite temperature and the top quark self -mass. Our finding for the fermionic contribution to Z(phi, T) is infr ared finite and disagrees with other recent results. In general, neith er the order of the phase transition nor the temperature at which it o ccurs change, once Z(phi, T) is included. But a nonvanishing, positive (negative) Z(phi, T) enhances (decreases) the critical droplet surfac e tension and the strength of the phase transition. We find that in th e range of parameter space which allows for a first-order phase transi tion the wave function correction term is negative, indicating a weake r phase transition, and especially for small field values so large tha t perturbation theory becomes unreliable.