On the mass spectrum of the SU(2) Higgs model in 2+1 dimensions

We calculate the masses of the low-lying states with quantum numbers JPC=0++,1-- in the Higgs and confinement regions of the three-dimensional SU(2) Higgs model, which plays an important role in the description of the thermodynamic properties of the standard model at finite temperatures. We extract the masses from correlation functions of gauge-invariant operators which are calculated by means of a lattice Monte Carlo simulation. The projection properties of our lattice operators onto the lowest states are greatly improved by the use of smearing techniques. We also consider cross correlations between various operators with the same quantum numbers. From these the mass eigenstates are determined by means of a variational calculation. In the symmetric phase, we find that some of the ground-state masses are about 30% lighter than those reported from previous simulations. We also obtain the masses of the first few excited states in the symmetric phase. Remarkable among these is the occurrence of a 0++ state composed almost entirely of gauge degrees of freedom. The mass of this state, as well as that of its first excitations, is nearly identical to the corresponding glueball states in three-dimensional SU(2) pure gauge theory, indicating an approximate decoupling of the pure gauge sector from the Higgs sector of the model. We perform a detailed study of finite-size effects and extrapolate the lattice mass spectrum to the continuum. (orig.)