2008/06/30 by Tina Kahniashvili, Arthur Kosowsky, G. Gogoberidze +2 · 6 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.78.043003
published as Phys.Rev.D78:043003,2008 · 9 pages, 11 figures, Eq. 9 and Fig. 1 corrected, conclusions unchanged, references added, PRD accepted
arxiv created 2008/07/15 · openalex publication_date 2008/08/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Gravitational waves potentially represent our only direct probe of the universe when it was less than one second old. In particular, first-order phase transitions in the early universe can generate a stochastic background of gravitational waves which may be detectable today. We briefly summarize the physical sources of gravitational radiation from phase transitions and present semianalytic expressions for the resulting gravitational wave spectra from three distinct realistic sources: bubble collisions, turbulent plasma motions, and inverse-cascade helical magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. Using phenomenological parameters to describe phase transition properties, we determine the region of parameter space for which gravitational waves can be detected by the proposed Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. The electroweak phase transition is detectable for a wide range of parameters.