Shedding Light on Dark Sectors with Gravitational Waves

TL;DR

This paper explores how gravitational waves from early Universe phase transitions can reveal properties of dark sectors, especially those linked to neutron physics, offering a novel observational approach.

Contribution

It introduces a new method to detect dark sector models via gravitational wave signatures connected to neutron physics puzzles.

Findings

Gravitational waves can carry signatures of dark sector phase transitions.

Dark U(1) and SU(2) models produce detectable gravitational wave signals.

Future experiments could identify these signals, shedding light on dark matter and neutron anomalies.

Abstract

The nature of dark matter remains one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in elementary particle physics. It might well be that the dark matter particle belongs to a dark sector completely secluded or extremely weakly coupled to the visible sector. We demonstrate that gravitational waves arising from first order phase transitions in the early Universe can be used to look for signatures of such dark sector models connected to neutron physics. This introduces a new connection between gravitational wave physics and nuclear physics experiments. Focusing on two particular extensions of the Standard Model with dark U(1) and SU(2) gauge groups constructed to address the neutron lifetime puzzle, we show how those signatures can be searched for in future gravitational wave and astrometry experiments.