Little inflation at the cosmological QCD phase transition

2011/05/31 by Tillmann Boeckel, Jürgen Schaffner-Bielich, Jürgen Schaffner–Bielich · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics #Baryogenesis #Baryon #Baryon asymmetry #Baryon number #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark matter #Gravitational wave #Gravitational wave background #Inflation (cosmology) #Nuclear physics #Observable #Particle physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Phase transition #Physics #Quantum chromodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Theoretical physics #Universe #astro-ph.CO

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.85.103506

18 pages, 12 figures, several extensions to the text and structure formation part was rephrased for better readability

arxiv created 2011/10/10 · openalex publication_date 2012/05/08 · arxiv updated 2013/05/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We reexamine the recently proposed ``little inflation'' scenario that allows for a strong first-order phase transition of QCD at non-negligible baryon number in the early Universe and its possible observable consequences. The scenario is based on the assumptions of a strong mechanism for baryogenesis and a quasistable QCD-medium state which triggers a short inflationary period of inflation diluting the baryon asymmetry to the value observed today. The cosmological implications are reexamined, namely, effects on primordial density fluctuations up to dark matter mass scales of M_max\ensuremath∼1M_\ensuremath\bigodot, change in the spectral slope up to M_max\ensuremath∼10⁶M_\ensuremath\bigodot, production of seeds for the present galactic and extragalactic magnetic fields, and a gravitational wave spectrum with a peak frequency around \ensuremathν_peak\ensuremath∼4\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10^\ensuremath-8 Hz. We discuss the issue of nucleation in more detail and employ a chiral effective model of QCD to study the impact on small scale structure formation.

Citations

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• Peaks above the Harrison-Zel'dovich Spectrum due to the Quark-Gluon to Hadron Transition

Cited by

• Cosmological magnetic fields: their generation, evolution and observation
• QCD equation of state and cosmological parameters in the early universe

Related

• A Little Inflation in the Early Universe at the QCD Phase Transition
• The cosmological QCD phase transition revisited
• Nanohertz gravitational waves and primordial quark nuggets from dense QCD matter in the early universe
• Single Field Baryogenesis and the Scale of Inflation
• QCD phase transition and primordial density perturbations