Gravitational Waves from a Dilaton-Induced, First-Order QCD Phase Transition

We show that a QCD dilaton field, whose vacuum expectation value sets the strong coupling, can render the quantum chromodynamic (QCD) confinement transition first order. The QCD dilaton is cosmologically attracted to a false vacuum at weak coupling in the early Universe. Quantum tunneling toward the true vacuum triggers prompt chiral symmetry breaking and confinement of QCD, leading to detonating bubbles of the hadronic phase. We find that plasma sound waves produced by this dilaton-induced, first-order QCD phase transition generate a stochastic gravitational wave signal strikingly similar to the recently detected gravitational wave background from pulsar timing arrays. We briefly comment on how this theory can be probed through collider experiments and cosmology.