Münster 2017 – scientific programme

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 110: Topical Workshop: Gravitational Waves and Particle Physics

T 110.3: Semi-Invited Talk

Thursday, March 30, 2017, 17:45–18:15, H 4

The string soundscape at gravitational wave detectors — •Sven Krippendorf — Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, 1 Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3NP, UK

We argue that gravitational wave signals due to collisions of ultra-relativistic bubble walls may be common in string theory. This occurs due to a process of post-inflationary vacuum decay via quantum tunnelling within warped throats. Though we study a specific string construction, we argue that our conclusions are more general. Many such transitions could have occurred in the post-inflationary Universe, as a large number of throats with exponentially different mass scales can be present in the string landscape, leading to several signals of widely different frequencies - a soundscape connected to the landscape of vacua. Detectors such as aLIGO, LISA, and observations with SKA and EPTA (pulsar timing) have the sensitivity to detect such signals. A distribution of primordial black holes is also a consequence, though reliable estimates of masses and their abundance require dedicated numerical simulations, as do the fine details of the gravitational wave spectrum due to the unusual nature of both the bubble walls and transition.