ELFT HÍRADÓ

[Kormányos Andor <andor.kormanyos AT ttk.elte.hu>]

ELTE TTK Fizikai Intézet / ELTE Institute of Physics


ORTVAY KOLLOKVIUM / ORTVAY COLLOQUIUM
(https://physics.elte.hu/ortvayseminar)


Thursday, 7th December  2023, 15:00h.

Pócza Jenő Classroom,  Physics Building 1.71

Pázmány Péter sétány 1/A, 1117 Budapest.


Peter Athron

Nanjing Normal University

From Cosmological phase transitions to gravitational waves
The first observation of gravitational waves (2017 Nobel prize for physics) 
opened up a new window into particle physics as well as astronomy. In 
particular gravitational waves can be produced
from first order cosmological phase transitions that occur early in the 
Universe. Cosmological phase transitions play a key role in particle physics 
leading to the Higgs mechanism where electroweak
symmetry is broken and the transition from the quark-gluon plasma to confined 
hadrons such as protons and neutrons. They also appear in many extensions of 
the standard model of particle physics
such as grand unified theories and first order cosmological phase transitions 
are a vital ingredient in solutions to the matter anti-matter asymmetry. 
Observation of stochastic gravitational wave
background from a cosmological phase transition would be a discovery of new 
physics beyond the standard model of particle physics, because the standard 
model predicts the electroweak and QCD phase
transitions to be smooth crossover transitions. In this colloquium I will 
give a pedagogical description of first order cosmological phase transitions 
and how they lead to gravitational wave predictions.
This is a very active and open area of research with many unknowns and 
uncertainties, so I will highlight the limitations in our knowledge and 
exciting opportunities for new work to have a large impact.


Andor Kormányos
coordinator