Gravitational wave production from preheating: parameter dependence

Abstract

Parametric resonance is among the most efficient phenomena generating gravitational waves (GWs) in the early Universe. The dynamics of parametric resonance, and hence of the GWs, depend exclusively on the resonance parameter $q$. The latter is determined by the properties of each scenario: the initial amplitude and potential curvature of the oscillating field, and its coupling to other species. Previous works have only studied the GW production for fixed value(s) of $q$. We present an analytical derivation of the GW amplitude dependence on $q$, valid for any scenario, which we confront against numerical results. By running lattice simulations in an expanding grid, we study for a wide range of $q$ values, the production of GWs in post-inflationary preheating scenarios driven by parametric resonance. We present simple fits for the final amplitude and position of the local maxima in the GW spectrum. Our parametrization allows to predict the location and amplitude of the GW background today, for an arbitrary $q$. The GW signal can be rather large, as $h^2{\Omega }_{\mathrm{GW}}(f_p)\lesssim 10^{-11}$, but it is always peaked at high frequencies $f_p\gtrsim 10^7$ Hz. We also discuss the case of spectator-field scenarios, where the oscillatory field can be e.g.~a curvaton, or the Standard Model Higgs.

Corrected typos, matches version published in JCAP (39 pages + appendix, 11 figures)

References in corpus (24)

• The Standard Model Higgs boson as the inflaton
• Higgs inflation: consistency and generalisations
• Nonperturbative Dynamics Of Reheating After Inflation: A Review
• Theory and Numerics of Gravitational Waves from Preheating after Inflation
• 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
• Unifying inflation with the axion, dark matter, baryogenesis and the seesaw mechanism
• Gravitational Waves from Abelian Gauge Fields and Cosmic Strings at Preheating
• Exact Scale-Invariant Background of Gravitational Waves from Cosmic Defects
• Non-Gaussian Spikes from Chaotic Billiards in Inflation Preheating
• Magnetic field production during preheating at the electroweak scale
• Lattice calculation of non-Gaussianity from preheating
• The Art of Lattice and Gravity Waves from Preheating
• Postinflationary Higgs relaxation and the origin of matter-antimatter asymmetry
• Gravitational Waves From the End of Inflation: Computational Strategies
• Parametric Resonance in the Early Universe - A Fitting Analysis
• Primordial magnetic fields from preheating at the electroweak scale
• Stochastic Backgrounds of Gravitational Waves from Cosmological Sources: Techniques and Applications to Preheating
• The Fate of SUSY Flat Directions and their Role in Reheating
• Cosmological Perturbations from the Standard Model Higgs
• Non-Abelian dynamics in the resonant decay of the Higgs after inflation
• Curvaton Decay by Resonant Production of the Standard Model Higgs
• The nonperturbative decay of SUSY flat directions

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Gravitational perturbations from oscillons and transients after inflation
• Gravitational Waves from Oscillons with Cuspy Potentials