Peter Athron (Nanjing Normal University)

From Cosmological phase transitionsto gravitational waves

Az előadás kivonata: The first observation of gravitational waves (2017 nobel prize for physics) opened up a newwindow into particle physics as well as astronomy. In particular gravitational waves can beproduced from first order cosmological phase transitions that occur early in the Universe.Cosmological phase transitions play a key role in particle physics leading to the Higgsmechanism where electroweak symmetry is broken and the transition from the quark-gluon plasma to confined hadrons such as protons and neutrons. They also appear inmany extensions of the standard model of particle physics such as grand unified theoriesand first order cosmological phase transitions are a vital ingredient in solutions to thematter anti-matter asymmetry. Observation of stochastic gravitational wave backgroundfrom a cosmological phase transition would be a discovery of new physics beyond thestandard model of particle physics, because the standard model predicts the electroweakand QCD phase transitions to be smooth crossover transitions. In this colloquium I willgive a pedagogical description of first order cosmological phase transitions and how theylead to gravitational wave predictions. This is a very active and open area of research withmany unknowns and uncertainties, so I will highlight the limitations in our knowledge andexciting opportunities for new work to have a large impact.

Az előadóról:

• rövid bemutatkozás
• Google Scholar