Speaker
Mark Hindmarsh
(U Helsinki & U Sussex)
Description
In extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics, phase changes associated with symmetry-breaking or confinement could have been first order transitions, featuring the nucleation, expansion and merger of bubbles of the newly stable phase. The resulting sound waves would have been a powerful source of gravitational radiation, containing information about the thermodynamic parameters of the transition. I will review ongoing work on characterising the spectrum of gravitational radiation from early universe phase transitions and prospects for observing an electroweak-scale transition at the future space-based gravitational wave detector LISA.