Fingerprinting models of first-order phase transitions by the synergy between collider and gravitational-wave experiments

Abstract

We investigate the sensitivity of future space-based interferometers such as LISA and DECIGO to the parameters of new particle physics models which drive a first-order phase transition in the early Universe. We first perform a Fisher matrix analysis on the quantities characterizing the gravitational wave spectrum resulting from the phase transition, such as the peak frequency and amplitude. We next perform a Fisher analysis for the quantities which determine the properties of the phase transition, such as the latent heat and the time dependence of the bubble nucleation rate. Since these quantities are determined by the model parameters of the new physics, we can estimate the expected sensitivities to such parameters. We illustrate this point by taking three new physics models for example: (1) models with additional isospin singlet scalars (2) a model with an extra real Higgs singlet, and (3) a classically conformal $B-L$ model. We find that future gravitational wave observations play complementary roles to future collider experiments in pinning down the parameters of new physics models driving a first-order phase transition.