Gravitational waves from phase transitions at the electroweak scale and beyond

2006/07/10 by Christophe Grojean, Geraldine Servant, Géraldine Servant · 15 citations
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Baryogenesis #Computational Physics and Python Applications #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Electroweak interaction #Gravitational wave #Gravitational wave background #Higgs boson #LIGO #Particle physics #Phase transition #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum mechanics #Scalar (mathematics) #Symmetry breaking #Universe #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.75.043507

published as Phys.Rev.D75:043507,2007 · 18 pages, 24 figures

arxiv created 2006/07/10 · openalex publication_date 2007/02/12 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

If there was a first-order phase transition in the early universe, there should be an associated stochastic background of gravitational waves. In this paper, we point out that the characteristic frequency of the spectrum due to phase transitions which took place in the temperature range 100 GeV--10⁷ GeV is precisely in the window that will be probed by the second generation of space-based interferometers such as the big bang observer (BBO). Taking into account the astrophysical foreground, we determine the type of phase transitions which could be detected either at LISA, LIGO or BBO, in terms of the amount of supercooling and the duration of the phase transition that are needed. Those two quantities can be calculated for any given effective scalar potential describing the phase transition. In particular, the new models of electroweak symmetry-breaking which have been proposed in the last few years typically have a different Higgs potential from the standard model. They could lead to a gravitational wave signature in the milli-Hertz frequency, which is precisely the peak sensitivity of LISA. We also show that the signal coming from phase transitions taking place at T\ensuremath∼1--100 TeV could entirely screen the relic gravitational wave signal expected from standard inflationary models.

Citations

• Relic backgrounds of gravitational waves from cosmic turbulence
• Gravitational waves from electroweak phase transitions
• Gravitational radiation from colliding vacuum bubbles: Envelope approximation to many-bubble collisions
• Gravitational wave experiments and early universe cosmology

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