Z–Vortex Percolation in the Electroweak Crossover Region

We study the percolation properties of embedded topological defects, Z–vortices, and the occurrence of the corresponding Nambu monopoles in the electroweak theory for a Higgs mass MH ≈ 100 GeV, near to the crossover temperature. Although there is no phase transition anymore at such strong selfcoupling, we observe that the Z–vortices still exhibit a percolation transition that has been found recently to accompany the first order transition at smaller Higgs mass. The percolating network of Z–vortex trajectories existing at higher temperature breaks into small segments with temperature decreasing below a well-defined value. Then one finds closed loops as well as monopolium states. The percolation transition is a prerequisite of a string mediated baryon number generation scenario. [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]