Science with the space-based interferometer eLISA. II: Gravitational waves from cosmological phase transitions

TL;DR

This paper assesses eLISA's ability to detect gravitational waves from early Universe phase transitions, highlighting its potential to explore new physics beyond the Standard Model through stochastic gravitational wave signals.

Contribution

It provides a model-independent analysis of eLISA's sensitivity to gravitational waves from cosmological phase transitions, connecting detector capabilities with beyond Standard Model scenarios.

Findings

eLISA can detect gravitational waves from strong first-order phase transitions

The sensitivity analysis applies to various detector configurations

eLISA can probe many beyond Standard Model theories predicting early Universe transitions

Abstract

We investigate the potential for the eLISA space-based interferometer to detect the stochastic gravitational wave background produced by strong first-order cosmological phase transitions. We discuss the resulting contributions from bubble collisions, magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, and sound waves to the stochastic background, and estimate the total corresponding signal predicted in gravitational waves. The projected sensitivity of eLISA to cosmological phase transitions is computed in a model-independent way for various detector designs and configurations. By applying these results to several specific models, we demonstrate that eLISA is able to probe many well-motivated scenarios beyond the Standard Model of particle physics predicting strong first-order cosmological phase transitions in the early Universe.