The quark chemical potential of QCD phase transition and the stochastic background of gravitational waves

TL;DR

This paper explores how a non-zero quark chemical potential influences the gravitational wave background generated by QCD phase transitions in the early universe, suggesting potential detectability improvements and model discrimination.

Contribution

It introduces a model incorporating quark chemical potential effects into the QCD equation of state, analyzing its impact on the gravitational wave spectrum from early universe phase transitions.

Findings

Increased peak frequency and energy density of GWs due to quark chemical potential.

Potential for future GW detectors to observe signals influenced by QCD parameters.

Model-dependent effects of quark chemical potential on GW signals.

Abstract

The detection of stochastic background of gravitational waves (GWs), produced by cosmological phase transitions (PTs), is of fundamental importance because allows to probe the physics related to PT energy scales. Motivated by the decisive role of non-zero quark chemical potential towards understanding physics in the core of neutron stars, quark stars and heavy-ion collisions, in this paper we qualitatively explore the stochastic background of GW spectrum generated by a cosmological source such as high-density QCD first order PT during the early Universe. Specifically, we calculate the frequency peak $f_{peak}$ redshifted at today time and the fractional energy density $\Omega_{gw}h^2$ in light of equation-of-state improved by the finite quark (baryon) chemical potential (we consider an effective three flavor chiral quarks model of QCD). Our calculations reveal a striking increase in $f_{peak}$ and $\Omega_{gw}h^2$ due to the quark chemical potential, which means to improve the chances of detection, in possible future observations (in particular SKA/PTA experiments), of the stochastic background of GWs from QCD first order PT. Even if the improvements could be weak, by updating the sensitivity of relevant detectors in the future, we can still remain hopeful. Concerning the phenomenological contribution of QCD equation-of-state, and in particular the possibility to detect a stochastic GW signal, we further show that the role of the quark chemical potential is model-dependent. This feature allows to discriminate among possible QCD effective models depending on their capability to shed light on the dynamic of QCD-PT through future observations of primordial GWs. In this perspective, the results are indeed encouraging to employ the GWs to study the QCD PT in high density strong interaction matter.