Induced gravitational waves as a cosmological probe of the sound speed during the QCD phase transition

TL;DR

This paper explores how induced gravitational waves, affected by the sound speed during the QCD phase transition, can serve as a cosmological probe to understand early universe physics and phase transitions.

Contribution

It introduces a method to indirectly measure the sound speed and equation of state during phase transitions using induced gravitational wave spectra.

Findings

Induced GWs depend on sound speed and can reveal phase transition dynamics.

Resonant amplification of GWs varies with sound speed at different times.

Predicted GW spectra are consistent with current observations and detectable in future experiments.

Abstract

The standard model of particle physics is known to be intriguingly successful. However their rich phenomena represented by the phase transitions (PTs) have not been completely understood yet, including the possibility of the existence of unknown dark sectors. In this Letter, we investigate the measurement of the equation of state parameter $w$ and the sound speed $c_{\rm s}$ of the PT plasma with use of the gravitational waves (GWs) of the universe. Though the propagation of GW is insensitive to $c_{\rm s}$ in itself, the sound speed value affects the dynamics of primordial density (or scalar curvature) perturbations and the induced GW by their horizon reentry can then be an indirect probe both $w$ and $c_{\rm s}$. We numerically reveal the concrete spectrum of the predicted induced GW with two simple examples of the scalar perturbation spectrum: the monochromatic and scale-invariant spectra. In the monochromatic case, we see that the resonant amplification and cancellation scales of the induced GW depend on the $c_{\rm s}$ values at different time respectively. The scale-invariant case gives a more realistic spectrum and its specific shape will be compared with observations. In particular, the QCD phase transition corresponds with the frequency range of the pulsar timing array (PTA) observations. If the amplitude of primordial scalar power is in the range of $10^{-4}\lesssim A_\zeta\lesssim10^{-2}$, the induced GW is consistent with current observational constraints and detectable in the future observation in Square Kilometer Array. Futhermore the recent possible detection of stochastic GWs by NANOGrav 12.5 yr analysis~[1] can be explained by the induced GW if $A_\zeta\sim\sqrt{7}\times10^{-3}$.