Gravitational radiation from a bulk flow model

Abstract

We perform simulations in a simple model that aims to mimic the hydrodynamic evolution of a relativistic fluid during a cosmological first-order phase transitions. The observable we are concerned with is hereby the spectrum of gravitational radiation produced by colliding fluid shells. We present simple parameterizations of our results as functions of the wall velocity, the duration of the phase transition and the latent heat. We also improve on previous results in the envelope approximation and compare with hydrodynamic simulations.