A hybrid simulation of gravitational wave production in first-order phase transitions

Understand

The LISA telescope will provide the first opportunity to probe the scenario of a first-order phase transition happening close to the electroweak scale.

• By now, it is evident that the main contribution to the GW spectrum comes from the sound waves propagating through the plasma.
• Current estimates of the GW spectrum are based on numerical simulations of a scalar field interacting with the plasma or on analytical approximations -- the so-called sound shell model.
• In this work we present a novel setup to calculate the GW spectra from sound waves.