LIGO as a probe of Dark Sectors

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how current LIGO gravitational wave data can be used to explore theories involving Dark Sectors with a Dark Higgs causing symmetry breaking through a first-order phase transition, even if disconnected from the Standard Model.

Contribution

It shows the potential of LIGO data to probe high-scale Dark Sector models with first-order phase transitions, linking gravitational wave observations to particle physics beyond the Standard Model.

Findings

LIGO O2 data can test Dark Sector scenarios with symmetry breaking at 10^8 - 10^9 GeV.

Current data constrains models with $SU(N)$ theories and fermions in the Dark Sector.

Gravitational wave signals from Dark Higgs phase transitions are within LIGO's sensitivity.

Abstract

We show how current LIGO data is able to probe interesting theories beyond the Standard Model, particularly Dark Sectors where a Dark Higgs triggers symmetry breaking via a first-order phase transition. We use publicly available LIGO O2 data to illustrate how these sectors, even if disconnected from the Standard Model, can be probed by Gravitational Wave detectors. We link the LIGO measurements with the model content and mass scale of the Dark Sector, finding that current O2 data is testing a broad set of scenarios where the breaking of $SU(N)$ theories with $N_f$ fermions is triggered by a Dark Higgs at scales $\Lambda \simeq 10^8 - 10^9$ GeV with reasonable parameters for the scalar potential.