Searching for Dark Sectors with Gravitational Waves

Dark matter is one of the biggest mysteries in particle physics. The dark matter particle may be part of a dark sector secluded from or very weakly coupled to the visible sector. I will show that gravitational waves generated by first order phase transitions in the early Universe can be used to investigate dark sector models connected to neutron physics, introducing a connection between gravitational wave detectors and nuclear physics experiments. Taking as an example two extensions of the Standard Model with dark gauge groups U(1) and SU(2), both constructed to explain the neutron lifetime discrepancy, I will demonstrate how those signatures can be searched for in future gravitational wave experiments and astrometry observations.