paper

Enhancement of second-order gravitational waves at Q-ball decay

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Published 26 May 2023 © 2023 IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa Medialab
, , Citation Shinta Kasuya et al JCAP05(2023)053 DOI 10.1088/1475-7516/2023/05/053

1475-7516/2023/05/053

Abstract

The recent observation of 4He favors a large lepton asymmetry at the big bang nucleosynthesis. If Q-balls with a lepton charge decay after the electroweak phase transition, such a large lepton asymmetry can be generated without producing too large baryon asymmetry. In this scenario, Q-balls dominate the universe before the decay and induces the sharp transition from the early matter-dominated era to the radiation-dominated era. In this transition, the gravitational waves (GWs) are enhanced through a second-order effect of the scalar perturbations. We evaluate the density of the produced GWs and show that pulsar timing array observations can probe this scenario depending on the amplitude of the scalar perturbations.

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10.1088/1475-7516/2023/05/053