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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Quantitative analysis of the gravitational wave spectrum sourced from a first-order chiral phase transition of QCD

Hui-wen Zheng1,*, Fei Gao2,†, Ligong Bian3,4,‡, Si-xue Qin3,§, and Yu-xin Liu1,4,5,∥

  • *Contact author: zhenghuiwen@stu.pku.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: fei.gao@bit.edu.cn
  • ‡Contact author: lgbycl@cqu.edu.cn
  • §Contact author: sqin@cqu.edu.cn
  • ∥Contact author: yxliu@pku.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. D 111, L021303 – Published 13 January, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.111.L021303

Abstract

We investigate the cosmological first-order chiral phase transition of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), and for the first time calculate its parameters which can determine the gravitational wave spectrum. With the state-of-the-art calculation from the functional QCD method, we found that the large chemical potential of QCD phase transition results in very weak and fast first-order phase transitions at the temperature lower than O(102)  MeV. These results further suggest that the gravitational wave (GW) signals of NANOGrav are very unlikely sourced from the chiral phase transition of QCD.

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Phys. Rev. D 111, L021303– Published 13 January, 2025
  • Received 19 July 2024
  • Accepted 31 October 2024
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