TY - JOUR
T1 - Echoes of inflationary first-order phase transitions in the CMB
AU - Jiang, Hongliang
AU - Liu, Tao
AU - Sun, Sichun
AU - Wang, Yi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
� 2016 The Authors
PY - 2017/2/10
Y1 - 2017/2/10
N2 - Cosmological phase transitions (CPTs), such as the Grand Unified Theory (GUT) and the electroweak (EW) ones, play a significant role in both particle physics and cosmology. In this letter, we propose to probe the first-order CPTs, by detecting gravitational waves (GWs) which are generated during the phase transitions through the cosmic microwave background (CMB). If happened around the inflation era, the first-order CPTs may yield low-frequency GWs due to bubble dynamics, leaving imprints on the CMB. In contrast to the nearly scale-invariant primordial GWs caused by vacuum fluctuation, these bubble-generated GWs are scale dependent and have non-trivial B-mode spectra. If decoupled from inflaton, the EWPT during inflation may serve as a probe for the one after reheating where the baryon asymmetry could be generated via EW baryogenesis (EWBG). The CMB thus provides a potential way to test the feasibility of the EWBG, complementary to the collider measurements of Higgs potential and the direct detection of GWs generated during EWPT.
AB - Cosmological phase transitions (CPTs), such as the Grand Unified Theory (GUT) and the electroweak (EW) ones, play a significant role in both particle physics and cosmology. In this letter, we propose to probe the first-order CPTs, by detecting gravitational waves (GWs) which are generated during the phase transitions through the cosmic microwave background (CMB). If happened around the inflation era, the first-order CPTs may yield low-frequency GWs due to bubble dynamics, leaving imprints on the CMB. In contrast to the nearly scale-invariant primordial GWs caused by vacuum fluctuation, these bubble-generated GWs are scale dependent and have non-trivial B-mode spectra. If decoupled from inflaton, the EWPT during inflation may serve as a probe for the one after reheating where the baryon asymmetry could be generated via EW baryogenesis (EWBG). The CMB thus provides a potential way to test the feasibility of the EWBG, complementary to the collider measurements of Higgs potential and the direct detection of GWs generated during EWPT.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85007415874&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.physletb.2016.12.029
DO - 10.1016/j.physletb.2016.12.029
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85007415874
SN - 0370-2693
VL - 765
SP - 339
EP - 343
JO - Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
JF - Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics
ER -