Other events [before April 2013]

Gravity waves by cosmological first-order phase transitions

by Thomas Konstandin (CERN)

Europe/Stockholm
A4:1069

A4:1069

Description
During a cosmological first-order phase transition, most of the latent heat is released into thermal energy and bulk motion of the plasma. The latter will give rise to anisotropic stress in the plasma and generate gravitational waves when the nucleated bubbles percolate at the end of the phase transition. In this talk I review the basic principles of gravitational wave production and the analysis of the energy budget of the phase transition by means of hydrodynamics. Finally, I will discuss how these signals can be used to constrain and/or rule out specific particle physics models.