Stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds (SGWBs) arise from the superposition of many unresolved sources of gravitational waves, producing a persistent, random signal across the sky. These backgrounds can originate from a range of phenomena, including astrophysical sources such as compact binary mergers, and cosmological processes like inflation, phase transitions, or cosmic strings. In this seminar I will talk about the methods used by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) collaboration to search for these backgrounds and the employed models. In particular, I will discuss about a dedicated search for SGWBs with double-peak spectral features, as motivated by a growing class of early-universe models predicting multi-scale dynamics.
Giada Caneva, Elia Bertoldo, Francesco Sciotti