Gravitational waves from first-order phase transitions: Towards model separation by bubble nucleation rate [CL]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1708.01253


We study gravitational-wave production from bubble collisions in a cosmic first-order phase transition, focusing on the possibility of model separation by the bubble nucleation rate dependence of the resulting gravitational-wave spectrum. By using the method of relating the spectrum with the two-point correlator of the energy-momentum tensor $\left< T(x)T(y) \right>$, we first write down analytic expressions for the spectrum with a Gaussian correction to the commonly used nucleation rate, $\Gamma \propto e^{\beta t}\rightarrow e^{\beta t-\gamma^2t^2}$, under the thin-wall and envelope approximations. Then we quantitatively investigate how the spectrum changes with the size of the Gaussian correction. It is found that the spectral shape shows ${\mathcal O}(10)\%$ deviation from $\Gamma \propto e^{\beta t}$ case for some physically motivated scenarios. We also briefly discuss detector sensitivities required to distinguish different spectral shapes.

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R. Jinno, S. Lee, H. Seong, et. al.
Fri, 4 Aug 17
47/47

Comments: 36 pages, 13 figures, 1 figure from arXiv:1605.01403