2015/12/31 by Chiara Caprini, Mark Hindmarsh, Stephan Huber +8 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph.CO #gr-qc #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2016/04/001
45 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in JCAP, added discussion on noise from galactic binaries and citations
arxiv created 2016/04/01 · arxiv updated 2016/04/20
We investigate the potential for the eLISA space-based interferometer to detect the stochastic gravitational wave background produced by strong first-order cosmological phase transitions. We discuss the resulting contributions from bubble collisions, magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, and sound waves to the stochastic background, and estimate the total corresponding signal predicted in gravitational waves. The projected sensitivity of eLISA to cosmological phase transitions is computed in a model-independent way for various detector designs and configurations. By applying these results to several specific models, we demonstrate that eLISA is able to probe many well-motivated scenarios beyond the Standard Model of particle physics predicting strong first-order cosmological phase transitions in the early Universe.