Title: Holographic Phase Transitions in the early Universe
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Abstract: Cosmological history of strongly coupled confining theories can provide possibilities for observable signals. These theories can undergo deconfinement/confinement phase transition in the early universe, which can result in gravitational waves observable in upcoming experiments. Using AdS/CFT, these theories have been studied in the Randall-Sundrum framework, and various quantitative aspects of the phase transition have been calculated. In the models that have been considered, the rate of transition from the deconfined phase to the confined phase is suppressed and leads to a period of supercooling. This enhances the gravitational wave signal, presents new mechanisms for interesting dynamics, but presents a tension between a low confinement scale and fitting to the standard picture of BBN.
In this talk, I will briefly review the calculations leading to these conclusions. I will present two modifications that are expected on general grounds, from including strong IR effects systematically, and are further motivated by explicit supergravity duals to confining gauge theories. Such effects change the results significantly. In particular, new qualitative features appear which have been missed in previous investigations. I will briefly comment on the phenomenological implications and open questions.
The talk will be based on 2309.10090 and 2401.09633.