Related papers: An upper limit on cosmological chiral gravitationa…
Gravitational waves were copiously produced in the early Universe whenever the processes taking place were sufficiently violent. The spectra of several of these gravitational wave backgrounds on subhorizon scales have been extensively…
We extend analytic formulas for the gravitational-wave (GW) spectrum from first-order phase transitions to include cosmic expansion under the thin-wall and envelope approximations. We demonstrate that even for strongly supercooled…
In this paper, we present an upper limit of $\Omega_{\rm GW}<1.2\times 10^{8}$ on an isotropic stochastic gravitational-wave (GW) background integrated over a year in the frequency range 0.05 Hz - 1 Hz, which improves current upper limits…
Gravitational waves (GW) produced in the early Universe contribute to the number of relativistic degrees of freedom, $N_{\rm eff}$, during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). By using the constraints on $N_{\rm eff}$, we present a new bound on…
Parametric resonance is among the most efficient phenomena generating gravitational waves (GWs) in the early Universe. The dynamics of parametric resonance, and hence of the GWs, depend exclusively on the resonance parameter $q$. The latter…
We revisit the big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) limits on primordial magnetic fields and/or turbulent motions accounting for the decaying nature of turbulent sources between the time of generation and BBN. This leads to larger estimates for…
We present new, tight, constraints on the cosmological background of gravitational waves (GWs) using the latest measurements of CMB temperature and polarization anisotropies provided by the Planck, BICEP2 and Keck Array experiments. These…
We assume that the origin of the electroweak (EW) scale is a gauge-invariant scalar-bilinear condensation in a strongly interacting non-abelian gauge sector, which is connected to the standard model via a Higgs portal coupling. The…
We study the possibility of relaxing the cosmological bound on the Higgs mass coming from the requirement of non-erasure of the baryon asymmetry by sphalerons. After reviewing the Standard Model case we obtain this bound in two extensions…
Relic gravitational waves (GWs) can be produced by primordial magnetic fields. However, not much is known about the resulting GW amplitudes and their dependence on the details of the generation mechanism. Here we treat magnetic field…
Gravitational waves generated during a first-order electroweak phase transition have a typical frequency which today falls just within the band of the planned space interferometer LISA. Contrary to what happens in the Standard Model, in its…
In a previous paper [1] we considered the possibility that (within the early-radiation epoch) there has been (also) a short period of a significant presence of cosmic strings. During this radiation-plus-strings stage the Universe…
The bubble wall velocity in an electroweak first order phase transition is a key quantity both for electroweak baryogenesis and for the production of a stochastic background of gravitational waves that may be probed in the future through…
I report on a critical analysis of the scenario of electroweak baryogenesis mediated by nonsuperconducting cosmic strings. This mechanism relies upon electroweak symmetry restoration in a region around cosmic strings, where sphalerons would…
We note that the maximum temperature during reheating can be much greater than the reheating temperature $T_r$ at which the Universe becomes radiation dominated. We show that the Standard Model anomalous $(B+L)$-violating processes can…
The origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry remains one of the most fundamental problems of cosmology. In this talk I present a novel scenario for baryogenesis at the electroweak scale, without the need for a first order phase transition.…
We put the upper bound on the gravitational waves (GWs) induced by the scalar-field fluctuations during the inflation. In particular, we focus on the case where the scalar fluctuations get amplified within some subhorizon scales by some…
The next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model predicts the formation of domain walls due to the spontaneous breaking of the discrete $Z_3$-symmetry at the electroweak phase transition, and they collapse before the epoch of big bang…
Gravitational waves are generated during first-order phase transitions, either by turbolence or by bubble collisions. If the transition takes place at temperatures of the order of the electroweak scale, the frequency of these gravitational…
The recent claim by BICEP2 of evidence for primordial gravitational waves from inflation has focused interest on the potential for early-Universe cosmology using observations of gravitational waves. In addition to cosmic microwave…