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Phys. Rev. D 79, 124034 (2009) [10 pages]

Gravitational waves from the fragmentation of a supersymmetric condensate

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Alexander Kusenko1,2, Anupam Mazumdar3,4, and Tuomas Multamäki5
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1547, USA
2Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8568, Japan
3Physics Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YB, United Kingdom
4Niels Bohr Institute, Blegdamsvej-17, Copenhagen, DK-2100, Denmark
5Department of Physics, University of Turku, FIN-20014, Finland

Received 13 February 2009; published 22 June 2009

We discuss the production of gravity waves from the fragmentation of a supersymmetric condensate in the early Universe. Supersymmetry predicts the existence of flat directions in the potential. At the end of inflation, the scalar fields develop large time-dependent vacuum expectation values along these flat directions. Under some general conditions, the scalar condensates undergo a fragmentation into nontopological solitons, Q-balls. We study this process numerically and confirm the recent analytical calculations showing that it can produce gravity waves observable by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, and Big Bang Observer. The fragmentation can generate gravity waves with an amplitude as large as ΩGWh2∼10-11 and with a peak frequency ranging from 1 mHz to 10 Hz, depending on the parameters. The discovery of such a relic gravitational background radiation can open a new window on the physics at the high scales, even if supersymmetry is broken well above the electroweak scale.

© 2009 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.79.124034
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevD.79.124034
PACS:
04.30.Tv, 11.30.Pb, 12.60.Jv, 98.80.Cq