Bubble Wall Velocity from Holography

Abstract: Cosmological phase transitions proceed via the nucleation of bubbles that subsequently expand and collide. The resulting gravitational wave spectrum depends crucially on the bubble wall velocity. Microscopic calculations of this velocity are challenging even in weakly coupled theories. We use holography to compute the wall velocity from first principles in a strongly coupled, non-Abelian, four-dimensional gauge theory. The wall velocity is determined dynamically in terms of the nucleation temperature. We find an approximately linear relation between the velocity and the ratio $\Delta \mathcal{P}/\mathcal{E}$, with $\Delta \mathcal{P}$ the pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the bubble and $\mathcal{E}$ the energy density outside the bubble. Up to a rescaling, the wall profile is well approximated by that of an equilibrium, phase-separated configuration at the critical temperature. We verify that ideal hydrodynamics provides a good description of the system everywhere except near the wall.