Gravitational waves from graviton bremsstrahlung in scalar leptoquark decays

Abstract

We study the stochastic gravitational wave background originated from graviton bremsstrahlung in decays of scalar leptoquarks, which are colored scalar bosons simultaneously coupling to a quark and a lepton. We take the scalar leptoquarks in the $\mathrm{SU}(5)$ grand unified theory as a concrete example. Stringent experimental bounds on proton decay force these particles to be superheavy, which in turn renders their graviton bremsstrahlung, induced by quantum gravity effects, less suppressed. By solving the relevant Boltzmann equation, we trace the evolution of the scalar leptoquark number density in the early universe and use it to compute the resulting gravitational wave spectrum. We find that high-frequency gravitational wave detectors employing resonant cavity techniques offer a promising means to probe such signals.