http://arxiv.org/abs/2002.04615
Gravitational waves (GWs) from strong first-order phase transitions (SFOPTs) in the early Universe are a prime target for upcoming GW experiments. In this paper, I construct novel peak-integrated sensitivity curves (PISCs) for these experiments, which faithfully represent their projected sensitivities to the GW signal from a cosmological SFOPT by explicitly taking into account the expected shape of the signal. Designed to be a handy tool for phenomenologists and model builders, PISCs allow for a quick and systematic comparison of theoretical predictions with experimental sensitivities, as I illustrate by a large range of examples. PISCs also offer several advantages over the conventional power-law-integrated sensitivity curves (PLISCs); in particular, they directly encode information on the expected signal-to-noise ratio for the GW signal from a SFOPT. I provide semianalytical fit functions for the exact numerical PISCs of LISA, DECIGO, and BBO. In an appendix, I moreover present a detailed review of the noise power spectra of a large number of GW experiments. In a companion paper [1909.11356], the concept of PISCs is used to perform an in-depth study of the GW signal from the SFOPT in the real-scalar-singlet extension of the standard model.
K. Schmitz
Thu, 13 Feb 20
38/54
Comments: 28+14+11 pages main text / appendix / references, 11 figures, 4 tables. Companion paper: 1909.11356