Gravitational waves as a probe of extended scalar sectors with the first order electroweak phase transition

Abstract

We discuss spectra of gravitational waves which are originated by the strongly first order phase transition at the electroweak symmetry breaking, which is required for a successful scenario of electroweak baryogenesis. Such spectra are numerically evaluated without high temperature expansion in a set of extended scalar sectors with additional N isospin-singlet fields as a concrete example of renormalizable theories. We find that the produced gravitational waves can be significant, so that they are detectable at future gravitational wave interferometers such as DECIGO and BBO. Furthermore, since the spectra strongly depend on N and the mass of the singlet fields, our results indicate that future detailed observation of gravitational waves can be in general a useful probe of extended scalar sectors with the first order phase transition.