Abstract
The effective field theory approach to high temperature field theory can be used to study the phase transition in theories with spontaneously broken symmetry. I construct a sequence of two effective three-dimensional field theories which are valid on successively longer distance scales for a specific model: N charged scalars coupled to a U(1) gauge field. The resulting effective Lagrangian can be used to investigate the phase transition, in particular the order of the phase transition as a function of N, using lattice simulations.