Shape of the acoustic gravitational wave power spectrum from a first order phase transition
Reviewed by Pith T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 kernel pith:KCUCQER5record.jsonopen to challenge →
read the original abstract
We present results from large-scale numerical simulations of a first order thermal phase transition in the early universe, in order to explore the shape of the acoustic gravitational wave and the velocity power spectra. We compare the results with the predictions of the recently proposed sound shell model. For the gravitational wave power spectrum, we find that the predicted $k^{-3}$ behaviour, where $k$ is the wavenumber, emerges clearly for detonations. The power spectra from deflagrations show similar features, but exhibit a steeper high-$k$ decay and an extra feature not accounted for in the model. There are two independent length scales: the mean bubble separation and the thickness of the sound shell around the expanding bubble of the low temperature phase. It is the sound shell thickness which sets the position of the peak of the power spectrum. The low wavenumber behaviour of the velocity power spectrum is consistent with a causal $k^{3}$, except for the thinnest sound shell, where it is steeper. We present parameters for a simple broken power law fit to the gravitational wave power spectrum for wall speeds well away from the speed of sound where this form can be usefully applied. We examine the prospects for the detection, showing that a LISA-like mission has the sensitivity to detect a gravitational wave signal from sound waves with an RMS fluid velocity of about $0.05c$, produced from bubbles with a mean separation of about $10^{-2}$ of the Hubble radius. The shape of the gravitational wave power spectrum depends on the bubble wall speed, and it may be possible to estimate the wall speed, and constrain other phase transition parameters, with an accurate measurement of a stochastic gravitational wave background.
This paper has not been read by Pith yet.
Forward citations
Cited by 23 Pith papers
-
Nonlinear growth and amplification of phase-transition gravitational waves induced by cosmic expansion
3D simulations in an expanding background show cosmic expansion drives nonlinear growth that amplifies gravitational-wave spectra from slow phase transitions by factors of 10 to 100.
-
LeWRON: Agentic Analysis of Electroweak Phase Transitions
LeWRON is a new agentic framework that automates construction, auditing, and exploration of finite-temperature effective potentials and gravitational-wave predictions for electroweak phase transitions starting from an...
-
Are Primordial Black Holes a Natural Dark Matter Candidate?
PBH dark matter spans all naturalness tiers, with some mechanisms as natural as WIMPs or freeze-in particles, determined by abundance map structure rather than candidate type.
-
New Sensitivity Curves for Gravitational-Wave Signals from Cosmological Phase Transitions
Defines peak-integrated sensitivity curves (PISCs) that fold in the expected spectral shape of gravitational waves from cosmological phase transitions and supplies semianalytical fits plus public data for major detectors.
-
Polyakov Loops Tame Phase Transitions
Polyakov loop contributions to the thermal effective potential soften electroweak phase transitions, disfavoring first-order transitions and suppressing gravitational-wave signals.
-
Electroweak First-Order Phase Transition Triggered by Non-Gaussian Fluctuations of a $\mathbb{Z}_2$-Symmetric Spectator Scalar
Non-Gaussian primordial fluctuations of a Z2-symmetric spectator scalar trigger a strong first-order electroweak phase transition, with the field serving as cold dark matter and generating a stochastic gravitational w...
-
Electroweak Baryogenesis from Collapsing Domain Walls
Collapsing axion-like domain walls generate the baryon asymmetry by acting as an effective chemical potential through coupling to the electroweak topological term, with the asymmetry produced via sphaleron processes.
-
Reviving WIMP dark matter with temperature-dependent couplings
Temperature-dependent DM couplings mediated by a scalar field's VEV that drops after a first-order phase transition allow sufficient early-universe annihilations for the observed relic density while evading current di...
-
A critical look at low-scale cosmological phase transitions in the PTA era
Precision study of dark sector phase transitions finds PTA-favored parameters near EFT breakdown with disfavored GW signals after higher-order corrections.
-
HydroGrav: Precise hydrodynamics and gravitational waves for cosmological phase transitions
HydroGrav code computes self-similar fluid profiles and GW spectra using exact EOS from effective potentials for EWPT models, identifying parameter regions in a Z2 SM extension where simplified EOS differ in amplitude...
-
A simple solution to the monopole problem: SU(5) GUT with symmetry breaking into special subgroup
An SU(5) GUT model uses an intermediate breaking to SO(3)_C × SO(2)_L realized by adjoint, symmetric tensor, and singlet scalars plus singlet fermions so that monopoles annihilate via cosmic strings, with possible fir...
-
Solving Cosmological Puzzles using Finite Temperature $\nu$SMEFT
A minimal extension of the Standard Model with three heavy Majorana neutrinos simultaneously realizes fermionic dark matter, a strong first-order electroweak phase transition, and low-scale resonant leptogenesis consi...
-
CP-violating multi-field phase transitions and gravitational waves in a hidden NJL sector
Multi-field tunneling analysis in a CP-violating NJL model yields a slow transition (β/H ~ 100) whose stochastic gravitational-wave signal is detectable by μAres and insensitive to the CP angle.
-
CP-violating multi-field phase transitions and gravitational waves in a hidden NJL sector
Multi-field CP-violating phase transitions in a hidden NJL sector produce undetectable stochastic gravitational waves but remain cosmologically viable due to prompt domain wall collapse.
-
Probing High-Quality Axions with Gravitational Waves
High-quality axion models with N_DW=1 and dark matter abundance requirement restrict the gauge breaking scale to 1.6e11-1e16 GeV, yielding a band of gravitational wave signals from two-step phase transitions consisten...
-
Electroweak phase transitions in a $U(1)_D$ extension of the standard model with dimension-six operators: Gravitational waves and LHC signatures
A dimension-six operator |H|^2|phi|^4 in a U(1)_D singlet extension relaxes the usual Higgs-portal and mixing-angle correlation, enabling strong first-order electroweak phase transitions driven primarily by the singlet VEV.
-
Numerical simulations of density perturbation and gravitational wave production from cosmological first-order phase transition
3D simulations of cosmological first-order phase transitions find density perturbation spectra with k^3 and k^{-1.5} slopes and GW spectra with k^3 and k^{-2}, confirming slow transitions can produce PBHs.
-
Observable CMB B-modes from Cosmological Phase Transitions
Phase transitions in dark sectors can generate CMB B-modes with amplitudes competitive with inflation but peaking at smaller angular scales.
-
Gravitational Waves from Multiple First-Order Phase Transitions in a Scenario with Early Matter Domination
Early matter domination with time-dependent decay rates produces multiple first-order phase transitions whose gravitational wave signatures encode the transition and reheating temperatures.
-
Phase Transitions and Gravitational Wave Production at the End of Thermal Inflation
Lattice simulations of the first-order phase transition terminating thermal inflation confirm bubble nucleation and yield gravitational-wave spectra potentially detectable by BBO and DECIGO.
-
Probing Dynamical Inverse Seesaw with Low-frequency Gravitational Waves
Dynamical inverse seesaw predicts low-frequency stochastic GW signals from a first-order phase transition, with complementarity to heavy neutral lepton searches at small active-sterile mixing.
-
TransitionListener v2.0 -- Robust gravitational wave predictions for cosmological phase transitions
TransitionListener v2.0 supplies an end-to-end pipeline from scalar potential to gravitational wave spectra with improved handling of transition dynamics and bubble separation.
-
Detecting gravitational waves from cosmological phase transitions with LISA: an update
Updated LISA detection prospects for gravitational waves from phase transitions are derived from state-of-the-art sound-wave simulations, with a new web tool PTPlot provided for parameter scans.
discussion (0)
Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.