English

NANOGrav spectral index $\gamma=3$ from melting domain walls

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2023-12-19 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We discuss cosmic domain walls described by a tension red-shifting with the expansion of the Universe. These melting domain walls emit gravitational waves with the low-frequency spectral shape Ωgwf2\Omega_{gw}\propto f^{2} corresponding to the spectral index γ=3\gamma=3 favoured by the recent NANOGrav 15 yrs data. We discuss a concrete high-energy physics scenario leading to such a melting domain wall network in the early Universe. This scenario involves a feebly coupled scalar field, which can serve as a promising dark matter candidate. We identify parameters of the model matching the gravitational wave characteristics observed in the NANOGrav data. The dark matter mass is pushed to the ultra-light range below 10111012eV10^{-11}-10^{-12}\,\text{eV} which is accessible through planned observations thanks to the effects of superradiance of rotating black holes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2307.04582,
  title  = {NANOGrav spectral index $\gamma=3$ from melting domain walls},
  author = {E. Babichev and D. Gorbunov and S. Ramazanov and R. Samanta and A. Vikman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.04582},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

7 revtex pages, 1 figure; added references and appendix with the calculation of gravitational wave spectrum; matches version accepted in PRD