Using Gravitational Wave Signals to Disentangle Early Matter Dominated Epochs
arXiv:2503.03101 · doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2025/11/004
Abstract
Curvature perturbations induce gravitational waves (GWs) at second order, contributing to the stochastic gravitational wave background. The resulting gravitational wave spectrum is sensitive to the evolutionary history of the universe and can be substantially enhanced by early matter-dominated (eMD) epochs, particularly if they end rapidly. Such epochs can be caused by primordial black holes (PBHs) and non-topological solitons (Q-balls), for example. Prior analysis approximated the end of the eMD epoch as instantaneous or used a Gaussian smoothing. In this work, we present a complete analysis fully incorporating their time-evolving decay rates. We demonstrate that the resulting signal spectra from PBH, thin wall Q-ball, thick wall Q-ball, and delayed Q-ball eMD epochs are distinguishable for monochromatic distributions. We then consider log-normal mass distributions and discuss the distinguishability of the various GW spectra. Importantly we find that the change in the spectrum from a finite mass width is qualitatively different from the change arising from a slower transition to radiation domination.
29 pages, 9 figures
References in corpus (42)
- Cosmological Perturbation Theory in the Synchronous and Conformal Newtonian Gauges
- Cosmological Perturbation Theory in the Synchronous vs. Conformal Newtonian Gauge
- A Theory of Dark Matter
- Science Case for the Einstein Telescope
- Secluded WIMP Dark Matter
- Gravitational Wave Spectrum Induced by Primordial Scalar Perturbations
- Gravitational-wave sensitivity curves
- Detecting gravitational waves from cosmological phase transitions with LISA: an update
- The cosmological gravitational wave background from primordial density perturbations
- Semianalytic Calculation of Gravitational Wave Spectrum Nonlinearly Induced from Primordial Curvature Perturbations
- Model Independent Properties and Cosmological Implications of the Dilaton and Moduli Sectors of 4-d Strings
- Cosmological Implications of Dynamical Supersymmetry Breaking
- Nonperturbative Dynamics Of Reheating After Inflation: A Review
- A Cosmological Signature of the SM Higgs Instability: Gravitational Waves
- MeV-scale reheating temperature and thermalization of oscillating neutrinos by radiative and hadronic decays of massive particles
- Single Field Double Inflation and Primordial Black Holes
- Inflationary primordial black holes for the LIGO gravitational wave events and pulsar timing array experiments
- Gravitational waves induced by scalar perturbations as probes of the small-scale primordial spectrum
- Gravitational waves from a universe filled with primordial black holes
- Small Q balls
- A fresh look at linear cosmological constraints on a decaying dark matter component
- Gravitational Wave Production right after a Primordial Black Hole Evaporation
- Gravitational waves from an early matter era
- PeV-Scale Dark Matter as a Thermal Relic of a Decoupled Sector
- Gravitational Waves Induced by Scalar Perturbations during a Gradual Transition from an Early Matter Era to the Radiation Era
- Gravitational waves induced from primordial black hole fluctuations: The effect of an extended mass function
- The Cosmological Moduli Problem, Supersymmetry Breaking and Stability in Postinflationary Cosmology
- Observable induced gravitational waves from an early matter phase
- Analytical and numerical properties of Q-balls
- Distinct signatures of spinning PBH domination and evaporation: doubly peaked gravitational waves, dark relics and CMB complementarity
- Detectable Gravitational Wave Signals from Affleck-Dine Baryogenesis
- Long-lived Light Mediator to Dark Matter and Primordial Small Scale Spectrum
- Memory burden effect mimics reheating signatures on SGWB from ultra-low mass PBH domination
- Cannibal domination and the matter power spectrum
- Quantum Corrections to Q-Balls
- Enhancement of gravitational waves at Q-ball decay including non-linear density perturbations
- Cannibalism's lingering imprint on the matter power spectrum
- Globular Cluster Seeding by Primordial Black Hole Population
- Enhancement of second-order gravitational waves at Q-ball decay
- Solitosynthesis induced phase transitions
- On the quantum stability of Q-balls
- Gravitational Waves from Incomplete Inflationary Phase Transitions