PT Journal
AU Figueroa, DG
   Florio, A
   Loayza, N
   Pieroni, M
TI Spectroscopy of particle couplings with gravitational waves
SO Physical Review D
JI Phys. Rev. D
PY 2022
BP 063522
EP 8pp
VL 106
IS 6
DI 10.1103/PhysRevD.106.063522
LA English
AB We discuss the possibility to measure particle couplings with stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds (SGWBs). Under certain circumstances a sequence of peaks of different amplitude and frequency-a stairway-emerges in a SGWB spectrum, with each peak probing a different coupling. The detection of such signature opens the possibility to reconstruct couplings (spectroscopy) of particle species involved in high energy phenomena generating SGWBs. Stairwaylike signatures may arise in causally produced backgrounds in the early Universe, e.g., from preheating or first order phase transitions. As a proof of principle we study a preheating scenario with an inflaton 0 coupled to multiple daughter fields f chi jg with different coupling strengths. As a clear stairway signature is imprinted in the SGWB spectrum, we reconstruct the relevant couplings with various detectors.
ER