Gravitational waves from the fragmentation of a supersymmetric condensate

TL;DR

This paper explores how the fragmentation of supersymmetric condensates in the early universe can produce detectable gravitational waves, offering insights into high-scale physics and supersymmetry through upcoming gravitational wave observations.

Contribution

It provides numerical confirmation that supersymmetric condensate fragmentation can generate observable gravitational waves in the early universe.

Findings

Gravitational waves with amplitude ~10^{-11} can be produced.

Peak frequencies range from millihertz to 10 Hz.

Detection of these waves can reveal high-scale supersymmetry physics.

Abstract

We discuss the production of gravity waves from the fragmentation of a supersymmetric condensate in the early universe. Supersymmetry predicts the existence of flat directions in the potential. At the end of inflation, the scalar fields develop large time-dependent vacuum expectation values along these flat directions. Under some general conditions, the scalar condensates undergo a fragmentation into non-topological solitons, Q-balls. We study this process numerically and confirm the recent analytical calculations showing that it can produce gravity waves observable by Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), and Big Bang Observer (BBO). The fragmentation can generate gravity waves with an amplitude as large as Omega_{GW}~10^{-11} and with a peak frequency ranging from mHz to 10 Hz, depending on the parameters. The discovery of such a relic gravitational background radiation can open a new window on the physics at the high scales, even if supersymmetry is broken well above the electroweak scale.