Audible curvaton: modulated phase transition as the origin of large-scale curvature perturbations and gravitational wave anisotropies

@misc{ai2026audible,
  title = {{Audible curvaton: modulated phase transition as the origin of large-scale curvature perturbations and gravitational wave anisotropies}},
  author = {Wen-Yuan Ai and Gabriele Franciolini and Xin Wang and Xiang-Xi Zeng},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.18975},
  eprint = {2610.18975},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.18975},
}

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Audible curvaton: modulated phase transition as the origin of large-scale curvature perturbations and gravitational wave anisotropies
AU  - Wen-Yuan Ai
AU  - Gabriele Franciolini
AU  - Xin Wang
AU  - Xiang-Xi Zeng
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/13
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.18975
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.18975
AB  - We propose a post-inflationary first-order phase transition modulated by a light spectator field as the origin of primordial large-scale curvature perturbations. Spectator fluctuations acquired during inflation modulate the bubble nucleation history, generating curvature perturbations together with correlated intrinsic gravitational-wave (GW) anisotropies. We show that this mechanism can reproduce the observed amplitude of curvature perturbations while producing a loud stochastic GW background in the frequency bands of space-based detectors such as LISA, Taiji, and TianQin. A concrete benchmark yields strongly enhanced intrinsic GW anisotropies and a local primordial non-Gaussianity signal within reach of future large-scale-structure surveys.
ER  -