Probing the high temperature symmetry breaking with gravitational waves from domain walls

Abstract

The symmetry can be broken at high temperature and then restored at low temperature, which is the so-called high temperature symmetry breaking. It often appears in some theories such as the high scale electroweak baryogenesis mechanism. In this paper, we probe the high temperature $Z_2$ symmetry breaking with gravitational waves (GWs) from the melting domain walls. We first introduce a scalar with $Z_2$ symmetry and a few singlet fermions that interact with scalar through a five-dimension operator. This leads to that the scalar potential has a non-zero minimum at high temperature. At the early stage, the scalar is pinned at symmetric phase due to the large Hubble fraction. When the scalar field's thermal mass becomes comparable to the Hubble parameter, it can quickly roll down to the minimum of potential. Then the $Z_2$ symmetry is spontaneously broken and the domain walls will form. With the decrease of temperature, $Z_2$ symmetry will be restored. We find that if domain walls are formed at $O\left({10}^9\right)\text{GeV}$, the GW produced by the melting domain walls is expected to be observed by BBO, CE and ET. In addition, we also discuss the relationships between this scenario and NANOGrav signal.