Data for the Standard Model equation of state

Mikko Laine, Manuel Meyer and York Schröder

The file below contains data shown in fig. 4 of 1503.04935 for various thermodynamic functions of the Standard Model. This data supersedes that provided previously.

General comments

The data consists of four different ingredients: extremely low-temperature results (T < 2 MeV) as specified at the bottom of this page; low-temperature results (T < 110 GeV) from hep-ph/0603048; intermediate-temperature results (125 GeV < T < 270 GeV) from 1503.04935; and high-temperature results (T > 290 GeV), originally obtained in hep-ph/0510375 but somewhat modified as explained in appendix B of 1503.04935.

Each of the regimes suffers from its own theoretical uncertainties, because they refer to different orders of the weak-coupling expansion or involve different resummations of higher order effects. As a result, the functions do not extrapolate to each other completely smoothly. The ~ 1% "jumps" visible in the data give an impression of these uncertainties.

Because of the mentioned jumps, it is not advisable to take numerical derivatives of the functions provided. Rather, derivatives should be taken analytically and the physical observable in question should be expressed in terms of the functions already provided (pressure and its first and second derivatives).

Finally, we would like to draw attention to the subsequent investigation 1508.07161 which contains refined lattice data for the vicinity of the electroweak crossover.

Notation

In a notation explained around eqs. (7.2) and (7.3) of 1503.04935, the columns of the file are:

1: T / MeV
2: p / T4
3: e / T4
4: s / T3
5: c / T3
6: w = p / e
7: cs2 = s / c
8: geff
9: heff
10: ieff

Here is the file:

Update Dec 2019

We have modified results at T < Tdec = 2 MeV, in order to account for neutrino decoupling, treated in a sudden decoupling approximation, and for the crossing of the electron mass threshold. Below Tdec, neutrino momenta and densities redshift with the entropy density sT of the thermal plasma (consisting of photons and electrons). Neutrino contributions to the pressure p and energy density e are determined according to kinetic theory. In contrast the contributions to the entropy density s and heat capacity c are ambiguous, given that the thermal relations s = ∂T p and c = ∂T e have no longer a physical meaning. Therefore, at temperatures below Tdec, we list the well-defined values of sT and cT, scaled however by a common constant, chosen to guarantee (approximate) continuity of these quantities at Tdec. The s thus rescaled can be used for determining redshift factors at any temperature.