17–21 Aug 2026
University of Helsinki Main Building
Europe/Helsinki timezone

Scalar-Induced Gravitational Waves from Thermal Inflation in Supercooled Cosmic Phase Transitions

19 Aug 2026, 14:15
15m
F4050 (4th floor) (University of Helsinki Main Building)

F4050 (4th floor)

University of Helsinki Main Building

University of Helsinki Fabianinkatu 33 Finland
talk (15min) Early universe physics, inflation, electroweak phase transitions, and sources for gravitational waves Early Universe Contributions 2

Speaker

Tamara Caldas (Goethe University Frankfurt)

Description

We investigate the gravitational wave signatures of a supercooled cosmic phase transition within a classically conformal Standard Model extension, where quark condensation can trigger symmetry breaking via spinodal decomposition instead of conventional bubble nucleation. By studying the amplification of scalar fluctuations in the linear regime, we estimate the associated scalar-induced stochastic gravitational wave background from the thermal inflation period preceding the phase transition. Lastly, we assess the prospects for their detection by comparing the predicted signals with the sensitivities of future gravitational wave experiments.

Author

Tamara Caldas (Goethe University Frankfurt)

Co-authors

Dr Daniel Schmitt (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)) Prof. Laura Sagunski (Goethe University Frankfurt)

Presentation materials

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