Cosmological phase transitions from the functional measure

TL;DR

This paper explores how modifications in scalar potentials due to quantum measure effects can influence early Universe phase transitions and produce gravitational waves detectable by future experiments, offering a new way to probe scalar self-couplings.

Contribution

It introduces a model with a logarithmic term in the scalar potential from the measure, linking gravitational wave signals to scalar self-couplings, and compares detector sensitivities with collider prospects.

Findings

Gravitational wave spectra are highly sensitive to scalar self-couplings.

Future gravitational wave detectors can probe scalar couplings with collider-like precision.

The measure-induced logarithmic term significantly impacts phase transition dynamics.

Abstract

We investigate how competitive gravitational wave detectors can be to current and near-future colliders in probing a model where the new physics is completely encapsulated in a modified scalar sector. For this, we study a model where an additional logarithmic term arises in the scalar potential due to a non-trivial path integral measure, which is constructed using effective field theory. This new term alters the dynamics of cosmological phase transitions and could lead to potentially detectable gravitational waves from the early Universe. Our results confirm the expectation that the intensity of such spectrum is highly correlated to the scalar field's self-coupling, and that gravitational wave experiments could therefore be used to probe these couplings with an accuracy competitive with the projected sensitivity of near-future colliders.