Gravitational Waves from Global Second Order Phase Transitions

TL;DR

This paper investigates the gravitational wave signals generated by global second-order phase transitions, using lattice simulations to model the dynamics and compare the resulting spectra to inflationary signals.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed lattice simulation analysis of gravitational waves from symmetry-breaking phase transitions and their comparison to inflationary spectra.

Findings

Produced scale-invariant gravitational wave spectra during phase transition

Explicit calculation of stochastic gravitational wave background

Comparison with inflationary gravitational wave signals

Abstract

Global second-order phase transitions are expected to produce scale-invariant gravitational wave spectra. In this manuscript we explore the dynamics of a symmetry-breaking phase transition using lattice simulations. We explicitly calculate the stochastic gravitational wave background produced during the transition and subsequent self-ordering phase. We comment on this signal as it compares to the scale-invariant spectrum produced during inflation.