Electroweak bubble wall speed limit

In extensions of the Standard Model with extra scalars, the electroweak phase transition can be very strong, and the bubble walls can be highly relativistic. We revisit our previous argument that electroweak bubble walls can "run away," that is, achieve extreme ultrarelativistic velocities gamma similar to 10(14). We show that, when particles cross the bubble wall, they can emit transition radiation. Wall-frame soft processes, though suppressed by a power of the coupling alpha, have a significance enhanced by the gamma-factor of the wall, limiting wall velocities to gamma similar to 10(14). Though the bubble walls can move at almost the speed of light, they carry an infinitesimal share of the plasma's energy.