Multi-wavelength observations of cosmological phase transitions using LISA and Cosmic Explorer

TL;DR

This paper assesses the potential for detecting gravitational waves from early Universe phase transitions using LISA and Cosmic Explorer, highlighting the complementary detection capabilities of both detectors across various models.

Contribution

It provides a reanalysis of detection prospects for gravitational waves from cosmological phase transitions with combined LISA and Cosmic Explorer data, considering different transition scenarios.

Findings

Combined detectors enhance detection prospects across parameter space.

Detection is possible for multiple phase transition models.

Both detectors together cover a wider range of early Universe scenarios.

Abstract

We reanalyze the detection possibilities for gravitational waves arising from cosmological first order phase transitions. We discuss the stochastic gravitational wave background corresponding to the three expected scenarios of phase transition dynamics. We then perform an analysis on the detection possibilities for each case using sensitivities for the next generation ground-based detector Cosmic Explorer and the current LISA proposal, using two analysis methods. We find that having both detectors allows wide detection possibilities over much of the parameter space, including that corresponding to several points relevant to different early Universe models.