Implications for Cosmic Domain Walls from LIGO-Virgo First Three Observing Runs

TL;DR

This paper constrains the energy density of gravitational waves from cosmic domain walls using LIGO-Virgo data, providing the most stringent limits at certain frequencies and exploring implications for the heavy axion model.

Contribution

It presents the first constraints on gravitational waves from cosmic domain walls using LIGO-Virgo data and applies these limits to the heavy axion model.

Findings

Upper limit on gravitational wave energy density at 35 Hz: < 1.4×10^{-8}

Most stringent limit at 35 Hz frequency band

Constraints on heavy axion model parameters

Abstract

We put constraints on the normalized energy density in gravitaional waves from cosmic domain walls (DWs) by searching for the stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB) in the data of Advanced LIGO and Virgo's first three observing runs. By adopting a phenomenological broken power-law model, we obtain the upper limit of normalized energy density of SGWB generated by DWs in the peak frequency band $10\sim200$ Hz, and get the most stringent limitation at the peak frequency $f_*=35$ Hz, namely $\Omega_\text{DW}(f_*=35\,\text{Hz})<1.4\times10^{-8}$ at $95\%$ confidence level (CL). Subsequently, we work out the constraints on the parameter space in the appealing realization of DW structure -- the heavy axion model which can avoid the so-called quality problem.