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Title: Implications for First-Order Cosmological Phase Transitions from the Third LIGO-Virgo Observing Run

Abstract

We place constraints on the normalized energy density in gravitational waves from first-order strong phase transitions using data from Advanced LIGO and Virgo’s first, second, and third observing runs. First, adopting a broken power law model, we place 95% confidence level upper limits simultaneously on the gravitational-wave energy density at 25 Hz from unresolved compact binary mergers, ΩCBC < 6.1 × 10–9, and strong first-order phase transitions, ΩBPL < 4.4 × 10–9. The inclusion of the former is necessary since we expect this astrophysical signal to be the foreground of any detected spectrum. We then consider two more complex phenomenological models, limiting at 25 Hz the gravitational-wave background due to bubble collisions to Ωpt < 5.0 × 10–9 and the background due to sound waves to Ωpt < 5.8 × 10–9 at 95% confidence level for phase transitions occurring at temperatures above 108 GeV.

Authors:
ORCiD logo; ORCiD logo; ; ; ORCiD logo; ORCiD logo; ORCiD logo;
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States); Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Science Foundation (NSF); Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation of Spain (MINECO); Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) (United Kingdom)
OSTI Identifier:
1777661
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1851229
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0009956; SC0009959; PHY-0757058; PHY-0823459; SEV-2016- 0588; PGC2018-101858-B-I00; ST/P000258/1
Resource Type:
Published Article
Journal Name:
Physical Review Letters
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Volume: 126 Journal Issue: 15; Journal ID: ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical Society
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; Physics; Gravitation; Gravitational waves

Citation Formats

Romero, Alba, Martinovic, Katarina, Callister, Thomas A., Guo, Huai-Ke, Martínez, Mario, Sakellariadou, Mairi, Yang, Feng-Wei, and Zhao, Yue. Implications for First-Order Cosmological Phase Transitions from the Third LIGO-Virgo Observing Run. United States: N. p., 2021. Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.151301.
Romero, Alba, Martinovic, Katarina, Callister, Thomas A., Guo, Huai-Ke, Martínez, Mario, Sakellariadou, Mairi, Yang, Feng-Wei, & Zhao, Yue. Implications for First-Order Cosmological Phase Transitions from the Third LIGO-Virgo Observing Run. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.151301
Romero, Alba, Martinovic, Katarina, Callister, Thomas A., Guo, Huai-Ke, Martínez, Mario, Sakellariadou, Mairi, Yang, Feng-Wei, and Zhao, Yue. Fri . "Implications for First-Order Cosmological Phase Transitions from the Third LIGO-Virgo Observing Run". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.151301.
@article{osti_1777661,
title = {Implications for First-Order Cosmological Phase Transitions from the Third LIGO-Virgo Observing Run},
author = {Romero, Alba and Martinovic, Katarina and Callister, Thomas A. and Guo, Huai-Ke and Martínez, Mario and Sakellariadou, Mairi and Yang, Feng-Wei and Zhao, Yue},
abstractNote = {We place constraints on the normalized energy density in gravitational waves from first-order strong phase transitions using data from Advanced LIGO and Virgo’s first, second, and third observing runs. First, adopting a broken power law model, we place 95% confidence level upper limits simultaneously on the gravitational-wave energy density at 25 Hz from unresolved compact binary mergers, ΩCBC < 6.1 × 10–9, and strong first-order phase transitions, ΩBPL < 4.4 × 10–9. The inclusion of the former is necessary since we expect this astrophysical signal to be the foreground of any detected spectrum. We then consider two more complex phenomenological models, limiting at 25 Hz the gravitational-wave background due to bubble collisions to Ωpt < 5.0 × 10–9 and the background due to sound waves to Ωpt < 5.8 × 10–9 at 95% confidence level for phase transitions occurring at temperatures above 108 GeV.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.151301},
journal = {Physical Review Letters},
number = 15,
volume = 126,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Apr 16 00:00:00 EDT 2021},
month = {Fri Apr 16 00:00:00 EDT 2021}
}

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