Pith. sign in

REVIEW 9 cited by

Can supercooled phase transitions explain the gravitational wave background observed by pulsar timing arrays?

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 2306.17239 v4 pith:VDXXT2ED submitted 2023-06-29 hep-ph astro-ph.CO

classification hep-phastro-ph.CO
keywords supercooledscaletransitionphasephysicssgwbbackgroundcompletion
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
0 comments
read the original abstract

Several pulsar timing array collaborations recently reported evidence of a stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) at nHz frequencies. Whilst the SGWB could originate from the merger of supermassive black holes, it could be a signature of new physics near the 100 MeV scale. Supercooled first-order phase transitions (FOPTs) that end at the 100 MeV scale are intriguing explanations, because they could connect the nHz signal to new physics at the electroweak scale or beyond. Here, however, we provide a clear demonstration that it is not simple to create a nHz signal from a supercooled phase transition, due to two crucial issues that could rule out many proposed supercooled explanations and should be checked. As an example, we use a model based on non-linearly realized electroweak symmetry that has been cited as evidence for a supercooled explanation. First, we show that a FOPT cannot complete for the required transition temperature of around 100 MeV. Such supercooling implies a period of vacuum domination that hinders bubble percolation and transition completion. Second, we show that even if completion is not required or if this constraint is evaded, the Universe typically reheats to the scale of any physics driving the FOPT. The hierarchy between the transition and reheating temperature makes it challenging to compute the spectrum of the SGWB.

Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.

Forward citations

Cited by 9 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. Supercooled Phase Transitions: Why Thermal History of Hidden Sector Matters in Analysis of Pulsar Timing Array Signals

    hep-ph 2025-01 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Tracking the evolving temperature ratio between hidden and visible sectors can change a supercooled hidden-sector phase transition's gravitational wave spectrum by up to four orders of magnitude, reviving it as an exp...

  2. Supercooled phase transitions in conformal dark sectors explain NANOGrav data

    hep-ph 2025-01 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    A conformal dark U(1)' sector undergoing a strongly supercooled first-order phase transition can fit the NANOGrav 15-year gravitational wave background.

  3. Cosmic string gravitational wave backgrounds at LISA: II. Reconstruction of conventional signals over astrophysical foregrounds

    astro-ph.CO 2026-07 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    When realistic astrophysical foregrounds are included, LISA can reconstruct the cosmic-string tension to 10% precision only for Gμ ≳ 10^{-11}, 10^5 times larger than foreground-free forecasts.

  4. Inflationary phase transitions in the early Universe: A Bayesian study with space-based gravitational-wave detectors

    astro-ph.CO 2026-03 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    With a Taiji-like detector, inflationary phase-transition gravitational-wave backgrounds are detectable at SNR≳10, but reliable parameter reconstruction needs SNR≳33 and degrades with astrophysical foregrounds.

  5. Bayesian analysis of the complex singlet model with phase transition gravitational waves

    hep-ph 2025-11 unverdicted novelty 5.0 of 10

    Bayesian forecasts for the Taiji detector constrain complex singlet model parameters through electroweak phase transition gravitational wave signals.

  6. Beyond the Daisy Chain: Running and the 3D EFT View of Supercooled Phase Transitions

    hep-ph 2025-11 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    With renormalisation-group running included, the one-loop high-temperature Daisy-resummed potential at µ=πT reproduces the phase-transition parameters of the two-loop dimensionally reduced EFT, while the no-running on...

  7. Measuring gravitational wave spectrum from electroweak phase transition and Higgs self-couplings

    hep-ph 2025-11 unverdicted novelty 5.0 of 10

    Using simulated Taiji data, the authors show that a stochastic gravitational-wave signal from an electroweak phase transition in the singlet-extended Standard Model can constrain the Higgs cubic and quartic self-couplings.

  8. Cosmic string gravitational wave backgrounds at LISA: I. Signal survey, template reconstruction, and model comparison

    astro-ph.CO 2025-08 unverdicted novelty 5.0 of 10

    As provided, the manuscript body (random lasing) does not correspond to the abstract (cosmic string gravitational wave backgrounds at LISA), leaving the abstract's quantitative claims unsupported by any accessible text.

  9. Gravitational waves and dark matter with Witten effect

    hep-ph 2025-01 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

    A dark SU(2) phase transition can produce monopole dark matter, make the axion heavy via the Witten effect, and generate nanohertz gravitational waves matching PTA hints.

Pith tools