Title: Cosmic Archaeology with Early Universe Gravitational Waves and Primordial Black Holes

Speaker: Dr. Rome Samanta, Institute of Physics, Prague

Abstract: LIGO's recent discovery of Gravitational Waves (GWs) has opened up a new cosmic frontier in GW physics. In particular, plenty of efforts are being made to detect GWs from the early universe. I shall discuss how early universe GWs could be novel probes of particle physics and cosmological models that may or may not be tested in other experiments. In the first half of the talk, I shall discuss how GWs and their spectral features could shed light on super-high-scale physics such as Leptogenesis, Dark Matter (DM) productions, Grand Unified Theories (GUTs), and the evolution of the very early universe. In the second half, I shall discuss phase transitions as the source of primordial black holes (PBHs) and how PBHs could act as possible correlators of GWs and 21cm cosmology.