Inflationary Gravitational Waves and the Evolution of the Early Universe

Abstract

We study the effects of various phenomena which may have happened in the early universe on the spectrum of inflationary gravitational waves. The phenomena include phase transitions, entropy productions from non-relativistic matter, the production of dark radiation, and decoupling of dark matter/radiation from thermal bath. These events can create several characteristic signatures in the inflationary gravitational wave spectrum, which may be direct probes of the history of the early universe and the nature of high-energy physics.

48 pages, 18 figures; minor corrections

References in corpus (22)

• The Standard Model Higgs boson as the inflaton
• Superconformal generalizations of the Starobinsky model
• Improved Calculation of the Primordial Gravitational Wave Spectrum in the Standard Model
• No-Scale Supergravity Realization of the Starobinsky Model of Inflation
• Superconformal Symmetry, NMSSM, and Inflation
• Relating gravitational wave constraints from primordial nucleosynthesis, pulsar timing, laser interferometers, and the CMB: implications for the early universe
• Probing reheating temperature of the universe with gravitational wave background
• Axion cosmology with long-lived domain walls
• Precision calculations of the gravitational wave background spectrum from inflation
• Superconformal Generalization of the Chaotic Inflation Model λϕ^4/4 - ξ/ 2 ϕ^2 R
• Running Kinetic Inflation
• Space laser interferometers can determine the thermal history of the early Universe
• The Gravitational Wave Spectrum from Cosmological B-L Breaking
• Testing String Theory with CMB
• Polynomial Chaotic Inflation in Supergravity
• MCMC analysis of WMAP3 and SDSS data points to broken symmetry inflaton potentials and provides a lower bound on the tensor to scalar ratio
• Imprints of the QCD Phase Transition on the Spectrum of Gravitational Waves
• Higgs Chaotic Inflation in Standard Model and NMSSM
• Scalar Trapping and Saxion Cosmology
• On bulk viscosity and moduli decay
• Inflation from a Supersymmetric Axion Model
• Lepton asymmetry in the primordial gravitational wave spectrum

Cited by in corpus (17)

• Semianalytic Calculation of Gravitational Wave Spectrum Nonlinearly Induced from Primordial Curvature Perturbations
• Primordial gravitational waves, precisely: The role of thermodynamics in the Standard Model
• Probing the Scale of New Physics by Advanced LIGO/VIRGO
• Thermal History of the Early Universe and Primordial Gravitational Waves from Induced Scalar Perturbations
• Fingerprinting models of first-order phase transitions by the synergy between collider and gravitational-wave experiments
• Imprint of a scalar era on the primordial spectrum of gravitational waves
• Primordial gravity wave background anisotropies
• Impact of high-scale Seesaw and Leptogenesis on inflationary tensor perturbations as detectable gravitational waves
• Axion Models with High Scale Inflation
• Studying Inflation with Future Space-Based Gravitational Wave Detectors
• Freeze-in Production of Dark Matter Prior to Early Matter Domination
• Cosmological and Astrophysical Probes of Vacuum Energy
• Probing flavor violation and baryogenesis via primordial gravitational waves
• Probing PeV scale SUSY-breaking with Satellite Galaxies and Primordial Gravitational Waves
• Measuring the primordial curvature perturbations from the scalar induced gravitational waves
• Axion Dark Matter Archaeology with Primordial Gravitational Waves
• Measuring the speed of scalar induced gravitational waves from observations