SciPost Submission Page
Whispers from the dark side: Confronting light new physics with NANOGrav data
by Wolfram Ratzinger, Pedro Schwaller
This Submission thread is now published as
Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Pedro Schwaller |
| Submission information | |
|---|---|
| Preprint Link: | scipost_202010_00008v2 (pdf) |
| Date accepted: | 2021-02-17 |
| Date submitted: | 2021-01-06 13:40 |
| Submitted by: | Schwaller, Pedro |
| Submitted to: | SciPost Physics |
| Ontological classification | |
|---|---|
| Academic field: | Physics |
| Specialties: |
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| Approaches: | Theoretical, Phenomenological |
Abstract
The NANOGrav collaboration has recently observed first evidence of a grav- itational wave background (GWB) in pulsar timing data. Here we explore the possibility that this GWB is due to new physics, and show that the signal can be well fit also with peaked spectra like the ones expected from phase transitions (PTs) or from the dynamics of axion like particles (ALPs) in the early universe. We find that a good fit to the data is obtained for a very strong PT at temperatures around 1 MeV to 10 MeV. For the ALP explanation the best fit is obtained for a decay constant of F ≈ 5 × 10^17 GeV and an axion mass of 2 × 10^−13 eV. We also illustrate the ability of PTAs to constrain the parameter space of these models, and obtain limits which are already comparable to other cosmological bounds.
Published as SciPost Phys. 10, 047 (2021)
Reports on this Submission
Report #2 by Anonymous (Referee 4) on 2021-2-12 (Invited Report)
- Cite as: Anonymous, Report on arXiv:scipost_202010_00008v2, delivered 2021-02-11, doi: 10.21468/SciPost.Report.2541
Strengths
1- Interesting analysis of potential physics implications of new experimental result with two different models
2- Main ideas and results are clearly presented
Weaknesses
The model agnostic approach to the phase-transition scenario makes it difficult to access the cosmological viability of these scenarios.
Report
The authors have addressed all the points I had brought up in my first report. I recommend publication of the manuscript.
Report #1 by Anonymous (Referee 3) on 2021-2-1 (Invited Report)
- Cite as: Anonymous, Report on arXiv:scipost_202010_00008v2, delivered 2021-02-01, doi: 10.21468/SciPost.Report.2489
Strengths
The paper discusses a recent NANOGraph anomaly in terms of several primordial signals. It is clear and well written.
Weaknesses
The discussion is partially agnostic when it comes to concrete models which makes some bounds (like BBN) hard to assess.
Report
The authors amended the issues I had with the previous version. I recommend publication.