How fast does the WallGo? A package for computing wall velocities in first-order phase transitions
A bstract WallGo is an open-source software designed to compute the bubble wall velocity in first-order cosmological phase transitions. Additionally, it evaluates the energy budget available for generating gravitational waves. The main part of WallGo, built in Python, determines the wall velocity by solving the scalar-field(s) equation of motion, the Boltzmann equations and energy-momentum conservation for the fluid velocity and temperature. WallGo also includes two auxiliary modules: WallGoMatrix, which computes matrix elements for out-of-equilibrium particles, and WallGoCollision, which performs higher-dimensional integrals for Boltzmann collision terms. Users can implement custom models by defining an effective potential and specifying a list of out-of-equilibrium particles and their interactions. As the first public software to compute the wall velocity including out-of-equilibrium contributions, WallGo improves the precision of the computation compared to common assumptions in earlier computations. It utilises a spectral method for the deviation from equilibrium and collision terms that provides exponential convergence in basis polynomials, and supports multiple out-of-equilibrium particles, allowing for Boltzmann mixing terms. WallGo is tailored for non-runaway wall scenarios where leading-order coupling effects dominate friction. While this work introduces the software and the underlying theory, a more detailed documentation can be found in https://wallgo.readthedocs.io .
Authors
- J. Hirvonen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5350-7556)
- Philipp Schicho (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5869-7611)
- Lauri Niemi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8068-4366)
- Benoit Laurent (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1306-3620)
- Jorinde van de Vis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8110-1983)
- Oliver Gould (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7815-3379)
- Andreas Ekstedt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2240-5557)
Institutions
- University of Geneva (CH)
- Uppsala University (SE)
- University of Helsinki (FI)
- University of Nottingham (GB)
- McGill University (CA)
- European Organization for Nuclear Research (CH)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of High Energy Physics
- Published
- 2025-04-15
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep04(2025)101
- Citations
- 22
- Primary Topic
- High-Energy Particle Collisions Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 41.14
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Strong
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
- Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
- Vetenskapsrådet
- Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron
- Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies