Gravitational waves induced by massless vector fields with non-minimal coupling to gravity

Abstract

In this paper, we calculate the contribution of the late time mode of a massless vector field to the power spectrum of the primordial gravitational wave using retarded Green's propagator. We consider a non-trivial coupling between gravity and the vector field. We find that the correction is scale-invariant and of order $\frac{H^4}{M_P^4}$. The non-minimal coupling leads to a dependence of $\frac{H^2}{M^2}$, which can amplify the correlation function up to the level of $\frac{H^2}{M_P^2}$.

13 pages