Events in Physics

Gravitational waves from phase transitions in the early universe

The universe went through at least two phase transitions very early in its history, related to the physics of the strong and electroweak interactions. I will report on recent 3-dimensional numerical simulations showing how a phase transition in the early universe generates gravitational waves from the sound it makes. The characteristic pattern of gravitational radiation from an electroweak transition (about 10 picoseconds after the Big Bang) is potentially observable at a future space-based detector.