Supercool exit: Gravitational waves from QCD-triggered conformal symmetry breaking

Abstract

Classically conformal Standard Model extensions predict an intriguing thermal history of the early universe. In contrast to the common paradigm, the onset of the electroweak phase transition can be significantly delayed while the universe undergoes a period of thermal inflation. Then, a first-order chiral phase transition could not only trigger electroweak symmetry breaking but also initiate the exit from supercooling. To study the dynamics of this scenario, we focus on low-energy quark-based QCD effective models that exhibit a first-order transition. While a large amount of latent heat is naturally involved if thermal inflation ends, we find that a supercooling period prior to the QCD scale considerably enhances the timescale of the transition. This enhancement implies great observational prospects at future gravitational wave observatories. Our results are readily applicable to a wide class of scale-invariant SM extensions, as well as strongly coupled dark sectors.

13 pages + appendix, 11 figures. v2: Minor revisions, results unchanged. Matches published version

References in corpus (33)

• Scientific Objectives of Einstein Telescope
• The Phase Structure of the Polyakov--Quark-Meson Model
• Singlet Higgs Phenomenology and the Electroweak Phase Transition
• Conformal Symmetry and the Standard Model
• Gravitational wave energy budget in strongly supercooled phase transitions
• Singlet-Catalyzed Electroweak Phase Transitions and Precision Higgs Studies
• A solution to the hierarchy problem from an almost decoupled hidden sector within a classically scale invariant theory
• Mesonic correlation functions at finite temperature and density in the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with a Polyakov loop
• Scale invariant extension of the standard model with strongly interacting hidden sector
• Chiral phase boundary of QCD at finite temperature
• Dynamics of Electroweak Phase Transition In Singlet-Scalar Extension of the Standard Model
• Gravitional radiation from first-order phase transitions in the presence of a fluid
• Friction pressure on relativistic bubble walls
• Improved Polyakov-loop potential for effective models from functional calculations
• Gravitational waves from bubble collisions and fluid motion in strongly supercooled phase transitions
• Baryogenesis from Strong CP Violation and the QCD Axion
• Conformal model for gravitational waves and dark matter: A status update
• DRalgo: a package for effective field theory approach for thermal phase transitions
• Leptogenesis triggered by a first-order phase transition
• Echo of the Dark: gravitational waves from dark SU(3) Yang-Mills theory
• Supercool Composite Dark Matter Beyond 100 TeV
• Ultra-relativistic bubbles from the simplest Higgs portal and their cosmological consequences
• Gravitational waves at aLIGO and vacuum stability with a scalar singlet extension of the Standard Model
• Dark Confinement and Chiral Phase Transitions: Gravitational Waves vs Matter Representations
• Majorana dark matter in a classically scale invariant model
• Turn up the volume: Listening to phase transitions in hot dark sectors
• Escape from supercooling with or without bubbles: gravitational wave signatures
• Nambu-Goldstone Dark Matter in a Scale Invariant Bright Hidden Sector
• Low temperature electroweak phase transition in the Standard Model with hidden scale invariance
• Scale genesis and gravitational wave in a classically scale invariant extension of the standard model
• Cosmology of Supercooled Universe
• Gravitational waves and dark matter from classical scale invariance
• Remark on the QCD-electroweak phase transition in a supercooled Universe

Cited by in corpus (20)

• Cosmological phase transitions: from perturbative particle physics to gravitational waves
• Primordial gravitational waves in the nano-Hertz regime and PTA data -- towards solving the GW inverse problem
• Primordial black holes from strong first-order phase transitions
• Gravitational waves from first-order phase transitions in LISA: reconstruction pipeline and physics interpretation
• Can supercooled phase transitions explain the gravitational wave background observed by pulsar timing arrays?
• Did we hear the sound of the Universe boiling? Analysis using the full fluid velocity profiles and NANOGrav 15-year data
• Primordial black holes as dark matter: Interferometric tests of phase transition origin
• Gravitational waves from supercooled phase transitions: dimensional transmutation meets dimensional reduction
• Primordial Black Holes from Conformal Higgs
• Constraints on holographic QCD phase transitions from PTA observations
• Composite Dark Matter with Forbidden Annihilation
• Sub-GeV dark matter and nano-Hertz gravitational waves from a classically conformal dark sector
• From Hubble to Bubble
• Transition rate and gravitational wave spectrum from first-order QCD phase transitions
• Interpreting the 95 GeV resonance in the Two Higgs Doublet Model: Implications for the Electroweak Phase Transition
• Thermodynamical uncertainties for primordial black holes from cosmological phase transitions
• Ladder top-quark condensation imprints in supercooled electroweak phase transition
• Significance of soft-scale breaking on primordial black hole production in Coleman-Weinberg type supercooling-phase transition
• Gravitational wave footprints from Higgs-portal scalegenesis with multiple dark chiral scalars
• QCD preheating: New frontier of baryogenesis