Related papers: The Cosmological QCD Phase Transition Revisited
Motivated by the recent evidence of a stochastic gravitational wave background found by pulsar timing array experiments, we focus on one of the prime cosmological explanations, i.e. a supercooled first order phase transition. If confirmed,…
If the cosmological QCD phase transition is strongly first order and lasts sufficiently long, it generates a background of gravitational waves which may be detected via pulsar timing experiments. We estimate the amplitude and the spectral…
We propose a novel mechanism to suppress the isocurvature perturbations of the QCD axion. The point is that the QCD interactions become strong at an intermediate or high energy scale in the very early Universe, if the Higgs field has a…
The standard model of cosmology assumes a homogeneous and isotropic universe that undergoes a period of exponential expansion very early on, named inflation. This stretches quantum fluctuations from the onset of inflation to cosmological…
We investigate the gravitational wave spectrum induced by first-order QCD phase transitions including the deconfinement phase transition in the pure gluon system and Friedberg-Lee model, and chiral phase transition in the quark-meson model…
Inflation in the early Universe is one of the most promising probes of gravity in the high-energy regime. However, observable scales give access to a limited window in the inflationary dynamics. In this essay, we argue that quantum…
First-order cosmological phase transitions (PT) can take place in a dark sector at relatively late times between the big-bang nucleosynthesis and recombination epochs. Because bubble nucleation is stochastic, the PT completes at different…
The talk is an introduction into diquark condensation phenomena which occur in QCD at high energy density. They are driven by instantons and instanton-antiinstanton pairs (or ``molecules''), which generate attraction in some qq channels. A…
Recent studies of the hot QCD matter indicate that the bulk viscosity ($\zeta$) of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) rises sharply near the critical point of the QCD phase transition. In this work, we show that such a sharp rise of the bulk…
A survey is given of recent QCD theory advances concerning the phase diagram, in particular the indications for a critical point and adjacent first order phase transition at high baryo-chemical potential, and the new ideas concerning a…
The big bang model and the history of the early universe according to the grand unified theories are introduced. The shortcomings of big bang are discussed together with their resolution by inflationary cosmology. Inflation, the subsequent…
In the early Universe, strongly interacting matter was a quark-gluon plasma. Both lattice computations and heavy ion collision experiments however tell us that, in the absence of chemical potentials, no plasma survives at $T <\sim 150$ MeV.…
We propose a new mechanism to suppress the axion isocurvature perturbation, while producing the right amount of axion dark matter, within the framework of supersymmetric axion models with the axion scale induced by supersymmetry breaking.…
The physical history of the Universe is completed by including the quantum planckian and trans-planckian phase before Inflation in the Standard Model of the Universe in agreement with observations. A new quantum precursor phase appears…
Strongly-coupled theories at the TeV can naturally drive a long period of supercooling in the early universe. Trapped into the deconfined phase, the universe could inflate and cool down till the temperature reaches the QCD strong scale. We…
The early stages of the universe evolution are discussed according to the hot big bang model and the grand unified theories. The shortcomings of big bang are summarized and their resolution by inflationary cosmology is sketched.…
In many interesting models, including superstring theories, a negative vacuum energy is predicted. Although this effect is usually regarded as undesirable from a cosmological point of view, we show that this can be the basis for a new…
It has recently been suggested that cosmologically significant numbers of black holes could form during a first-order QCD phase transition. Further, it has been asserted that these black holes would have masses corresponding naturally to…
A mechanism for suppressing the cosmological constant is described, using a superconducting analogy in which fermions coupled to gravitons are in an unstable false vauum. The coupling of the fermions to gravitons and a screened attractive…
We find that the adiabatic fluctuations produced in the primordial plasma by cosmological inflation resonantly excite the axion field during the QCD phase transition by pumping axions from low momentum modes to modes with momentum up to of…