Speaker
Description
Gravitational waves from an electroweak phase transition, expected to be visible to the next generation of detectors, offer a novel probe of particle physics by encoding information about the fields that drove the transition. Calculations of the gravitational wave power spectrum often adopt simplified equations of state to describe the relativistic hydrodynamics of the phase transition. These simplifications rely on the assumption that the universe is radiation dominated during the phase transition, which breaks down in the true vacuum phase. Moreover, fitting formulas used to determine the gravitational wave spectrum from the hydrodynamic solution are not easily generalised to a generic equation of state. We develop a self-consistent method for evaluating the gravitational wave spectrum using the equation of state derived from a particle physics model and without fitting formulas. We perform these calculations across the parameter space of a simple extension of the Standard Model. In this talk, I will demonstrate (i) the importance of a precise hydrodynamic description of cosmological phase transitions; and (ii) the degree to which this impacts the resulting gravitational wave spectra.