Spectator Composes a Gravitational Canon: Spectator-field-triggered Phase Transition During Inflation and its Anisotropic Gravitational Wave Signals

Abstract

We propose a general framework in which a phase transition is triggered during cosmic inflation by the slow-roll dynamics of a spectator field. The topological defects formed at the transition are inflated outside the horizon, reenter it after inflation, and can subsequently generate characteristic gravitational-wave (GW) signals. Quantum fluctuations of the spectator field modulate the timing of the transition, imprinting large-scale anisotropies in the resulting GW background. As an explicit realization, the spectator field may be identified with the Higgs field in a supersymmetric Standard Model. More generally, our framework applies to a wide class of spectator-modulated phenomena, providing a generic mechanism for producing anisotropic GW signals.

arXiv commentv2: matched journal version, 10+1 pages, 3 figures, v1: 5+5 pages, 2+1 figures