Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-15-2019
Published In
Physical Review D
Abstract
A primordial spectrum of gravitational waves serves as a backlight to the relativistic degrees of freedom of the cosmological fluid. Any change in the particle physics content, due to a change of phase or freeze-out of a species, will leave a characteristic imprint on an otherwise featureless primordial spectrum of gravitational waves and indicate its early-Universe provenance. We show that a gravitational wave detector such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna would be sensitive to physics near 100 TeV in the presence of a sufficiently strong primordial spectrum. Such a detection could complement searches at newly proposed 100 km circumference accelerators such as the Future Circular Collider at CERN and the Super Proton-Proton Collider in China, thereby providing insight into a host of beyond standard model issues, including the hierarchy problem, dark matter, and baryogenesis.
Recommended Citation
R. R. Caldwell, Tristan L. Smith, and D. G. E. Walker.
(2019).
"Using A Primordial Gravitational Wave Background To Illuminate New Physics".
Physical Review D.
Volume 100,
Issue 4.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.100.043513
https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-physics/378
Comments
This work is freely available courtesy of the American Physical Society.