Gravitational wave signals of dark matter freeze-out

Abstract

We study the stochastic background of gravitational waves which accompany the sudden freeze-out of dark matter triggered by a cosmological first order phase transition that endows dark matter with mass. We consider models that produce the measured dark matter relic abundance via (1) bubble filtering, and (2) inflation and reheating, and show that gravitational waves from these mechanisms are detectable at future interferometers.

Comments: 17 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. Version to appear in JHEP