English

Gravitational Waves from Supercool Axions

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2020-03-24 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We study the dynamics of the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) phase transition for the QCD axion. In weakly coupled models the transition is typically second order except in the region of parameters where the PQ symmetry is broken through the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism. In strongly coupled realizations the transition is often first order. We show examples where the phase transition leads to strong supercooling lowering the nucleation temperature and enhancing the stochastic gravitational wave signals. The models predict a frequency peak in the range 100-1000 Hz with an amplitude that is already within the sensitivity of LIGO and can be thoroughly tested with future gravitational wave interferometers.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1912.06139,
  title  = {Gravitational Waves from Supercool Axions},
  author = {Luigi Delle Rose and Giuliano Panico and Michele Redi and Andrea Tesi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1912.06139},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

29 pages, 9 figures. v2) Refs added, typos fixed, matches JHEP version

R2 v1 2026-06-23T12:44:27.934Z