Sensitivity to Dark Sector Scales from Gravitational Wave Signatures

TL;DR

This paper links gravitational wave signals from early universe phase transitions to dark sector parameters, showing that low-mass dark Higgs particles produce signals too weak for detection.

Contribution

It provides a general relation between gravitational wave signatures and dark sector parameters, highlighting the detectability limits based on dark Higgs mass.

Findings

Gravitational wave frequency and amplitude relate to thermal potential parameters.

Dark Higgs mass below 1% of its VEV yields undetectable signals.

Detectability depends critically on dark Higgs mass scale.

Abstract

We consider gravitational wave signals produced by a first-order phase transition in a theory with a generic renormalizable thermal effective potential of power law form. We find the frequency and amplitude of the gravitational wave signal can be related in a straightforward manner to the parameters of the thermal effective potential. This leads to a general conclusion; if the mass of the dark Higgs is less than 1% of the dark Higgs vacuum expectation value, then the gravitational wave signal will be unobservable at all upcoming and planned gravitational wave observatories.