Real Higgs singlet and the electroweak phase transition in the standard model, (UM-P-93/80, OZ-93/20)

The effective potential at finite temperature is constructed within the minimal standard model when a real Higgs singlet is added on. We find that a region of parameter space exists for which one can find a first order transition strong enough to prevent the erasure due to sphalerons of baryon asymmetry, while keeping the mass of the smallest Higgs boson above the experimental lower bound of about 60 GeV.