The density of states method and first order phase transitions
by
Strong first order phase transitions in the early universe can lead to phenomenological consequences that are of interest in the context of beyond the standard model physics, through the dynamics of bubbles and the potential generation of gravitational waves. However, they also lead to erogodicity problems and a breakdown of standard importance sampling methods on the lattice. In this talk I will discuss the use of a density of states method, the logarithmic linear relaxation method, in determining the thermodynamic properties of Yang-Mills theories at finite temperature around the deconfinement transition. I will give algorithmic details of the method and discuss why we might be interested in looking at these systems in the context of beyond the standard model physics.