First-order phase transitions and gravitational waves in the early Universe: from microphysics to macrophysics

Over the next few decades, we will have an exciting opportunity to test particle physics theories with gravitational waves (GWs) using space interferometries. A particularly interesting scenario is that of a first-order phase transition in the early Universe, where bubbles of true vacuum nucleate, expand, and collide, involving the surrounding plasma particles. In this talk, we present recent studies to determine the dynamics of the transition and production of the GWs, from the viewpoint of both microphysics and macrophysics. For the former, we discuss the effect of soft and collinear gauge boson emission on the bubble dynamics. For the latter, we discuss analytical and numerical efforts to determine the GW spectrum from the bubbles themselves and sound waves driven by the bubbles. The talk is based on 2112.07686, 2010.00971, 1707.03111, 1605.01403.

Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/91390797603?pwd=bWdEdUJNYkhZQWZQRFdsTjlSQXk0Zz09