Thermal Inflation and the Gravitational Wave Background
arXiv:0801.4197 · doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2008/05/013
Abstract
We consider the impact of thermal inflation -- a short, secondary period of inflation that can arise in supersymmetric scenarios -- on the stochastic gravitational wave background. We show that while the primordial inflationary gravitational wave background is essentially unchanged at CMB scales, it is massively diluted at solar system scales and would be unobservable by a BBO style experiment. Conversely, bubble collisions at the end of thermal inflation can generate a new stochastic background. We calculate the likely properties of the bubbles created during this phase transition, and show that the expected amplitude and frequency of this signal would fall within the BBO range.
21 pages, 4 figures; accepted for JCAP; a reference added; table reformatted
References in corpus (6)
- Theory and Numerics of Gravitational Waves from Preheating after Inflation
- Gravitational wave generation from bubble collisions in first-order phase transitions: an analytic approach
- A Gravitational Wave Background from Reheating after Hybrid Inflation
- Gravitational Wave Production At The End Of Inflation
- A stochastic background of gravitational waves from hybrid preheating
- Gravitational Waves From the End of Inflation: Computational Strategies