Abstract
The detection of a stochastic Gravitational Wave (GW) background sourced by a cosmological phase transition would allow us to see the early Universe from a completely new perspective, illuminating aspects of Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) physics and inflationary cosmology. In this study, we investigate whether the evolution of the scalar potential of a minimal SM extension after inflation can lead to a strong first-order phase transition. In particular, we focus on a BSM spectator scalar field that is non-minimally coupled to gravity and has a dynamical double-well potential. As inflation ends, the potential barrier diminishes due to the evolution of the curvature scalar. Therefore, a phase transition can proceed through the nucleation of true-vacuum bubbles that collide as they fill the Universe and produce GWs. We consider high and low scales of inflation, while also taking into account a kination period between inflation and the onset of radiation domination. With this prescription, we showcase a proof-of-concept study of a new triggering mechanism for BSM phase transitions in the early Universe, whose GW signatures could potentially be probed with future detectors.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. Michał Artymowski for useful discussions. We acknowledge funding from the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA) and the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) within the bilateral Programme for Cooperation in Science between Portugal and Poland, project 2021.09261.CBM. This work was supported by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange within Polish Returns Programme under agreement PPN/PPO/2020/1/00013/U/00001 and the Polish National Science Center grant 2018/31/D/ST2/02048. M. K. is supported by the National Science Centre, Poland, through the SONATA project number 2018/31/D/ST2/03302. J. R. is supported by a Ramón y Cajal contract of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation with ref. RYC2020-028870-I. G. L. is supported by a fellowship from “la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434) with fellowship code LCF/BQ/DI21/11860024. G. L. and M. P. acknowledge the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, for the financial support to the Center for Astrophysics and Gravitation-CENTRA, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, through the Project No. UIDB/00099/2020. M. P. thanks also the support of this agency through the Grant No. SFRH/BD/151003/2021 in the framework of the Doctoral Program IDPASC-Portugal.
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Kierkla, M., Laverda, G., Lewicki, M. et al. From Hubble to Bubble. J. High Energ. Phys. 2023, 77 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP11(2023)077
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP11(2023)077