Gravitational waves from Affleck-Dine condensate fragmentation

Abstract

Abstract. We compute the stochastic gravitational wave production from Affleck-Dine condensate fragmentation in the early universe, focusing on an effective potential with a logarithmic mass correction that typically arises in gravity mediated supersymmetry breaking scenarios. We find that a significant gravitational wave background can be generated when Q-balls are being formed out of the condensate fragmentation. This gravitational wave background has a distinct multi-peak power spectrum where the trough is closely linked to the supersymmetry breaking scale and whose frequencies are peaked around kHz for TeV supersymmetry breaking.

The fate of small classically stable Q-balls

“…The two standard mechanisms of forming dark matter Q-balls involve phase transition [7][8][9] or fragmentation of the scalar condensate [10][11][12] at high temperature T . Typically, these mechanisms act in a similar way, by collecting charge Q from the cosmological horizon of size H −1 into the compact objects which further relax into Q-balls.…”

“…Note that this generation temperature is much higher than the ones in typical models with large Q-balls, cf. [7][8][9][10][11][12]. Similar small-mass Q-balls were considered as natural candidates for self-interacting dark matter [39].…”

“…1 Exceptional stability singles out Q-balls as the favorite toys for cosmologists [6]. These objects may be generated in the early Universe via first-order phase transition [7][8][9] or fragmentation of the scalar condensate [10][11][12] to form dark matter at the present epoch. They may also participate in the Affleck-Dine baryogenesis [13][14][15] catalyzing the process and hiding the baryon number from the sphaleron transitions [16,17].…”

Supermassive dark-matter Q-balls in galactic centers?

“…Detailed studies in particular models might reveal observable signatures of intermediate-mass Q-balls, if they are produced. Model-dependent signatures may be found also for gravitational-wave astronomy, coming both from the primordial formation of Q-balls [59,60] and from the SMCO [32]. However, definitive tests will be provided by high-resolution observations of the Milky-Way central object.…”

Radiative corrections and instability of large Q-balls

“…In supersymmetric theories Q-balls may provide [3,4] an interesting alternative to dark matter particles in the framework of the Affleck-Dine approach to the baryogenesis (see also recent astrophysical constraints in [5]). Q-balls are also interesting for gravitation waves production in the early universe [6,7] and different cosmological scenarios [8,9]. So, there is a motivation for theoretical studies of nontopological solitons in the presence of other fields in different models of particle physics beyond the Standard Model.…”