Resonant Decay of Gravitational Waves into Dark Energy

Abstract

We study the decay of gravitational waves into dark energy fluctuations $\pi$, taking into account the large occupation numbers. We describe dark energy using the effective field theory approach, in the context of generalized scalar-tensor theories. When the $m_3^3$ (cubic Horndeski) and ${\tilde{m}}_4^2$ (beyond Horndeski) operators are present, the gravitational wave acts as a classical background for $\pi$ and modifies its dynamics. In particular, $\pi$ fluctuations are described by a Mathieu equation and feature instability bands that grow exponentially. Focusing on the regime of small gravitational-wave amplitude, corresponding to narrow resonance, we calculate analytically the produced $\pi$, its energy and the change of the gravitational-wave signal. The resonance is affected by $\pi$ self-interactions in a way that we cannot describe analytically. This effect is very relevant for the operator $m_3^3$ and it limits the instability. In the case of the ${\tilde{m}}_4^2$ operator self-interactions can be neglected, at least in some regimes. The modification of the gravitational-wave signal is observable for $3\times 10^{-20}\lesssim {\alpha }_{\mathrm{H}}\lesssim 10^{-17}$ with a LIGO/Virgo-like interferometer and for $10^{-16}\lesssim {\alpha }_{\mathrm{H}}\lesssim 10^{-10}$ with a LISA-like one.

arXiv comment31 pages, 7 figures. Matches JCAP version

References in corpus (34)

• Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger
• GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
• Cosmological Imprint of an Energy Component with General Equation of State
• Non-Gaussian features of primordial fluctuations in single field inflationary models
• A Dynamical Solution to the Problem of a Small Cosmological Constant and Late-time Cosmic Acceleration
• The Effective Field Theory of Inflation
• From k-essence to generalised Galileons
• Dark Energy after GW170817: dead ends and the road ahead
• Strong constraints on cosmological gravity from GW170817 and GRB 170817A
• Dark Energy after GW170817 and GRB170817A
• Implications of the Neutron Star Merger GW170817 for Cosmological Scalar-Tensor Theories
• Healthy theories beyond Horndeski
• Imperfect Dark Energy from Kinetic Gravity Braiding
• Cosmological perturbations
• Degenerate higher derivative theories beyond Horndeski: evading the Ostrogradski instability
• Starting the Universe: Stable Violation of the Null Energy Condition and Non-standard Cosmologies
• G-inflation: inflation driven by the Galileon field
• The Effective Field Theory of Dark Energy
• Exploring gravitational theories beyond Horndeski
• Maximal freedom at minimum cost: linear large-scale structure in general modifications of gravity
• Essential Building Blocks of Dark Energy
• Extended Scalar-Tensor Theories of Gravity
• The Effective Theory of Quintessence: the w<-1 Side Unveiled
• Gravitational Rainbows: LIGO and Dark Energy at its Cutoff
• A unifying description of dark energy
• Lattice study of classical inflaton decay
• Effective Description of Higher-Order Scalar-Tensor Theories
• Gravitational Wave Decay into Dark Energy
• Weakly Broken Galileon Symmetry
• Vainshtein regime in Scalar-Tensor gravity: constraints on DHOST theories
• Nonlinear Effective Theory of Dark Energy
• Weakening Gravity on Redshift-Survey Scales with Kinetic Matter Mixing
• Non-Abelian gauge preheating
• Behind Horndeski: Structurally Robust Higher Derivative EFTs

Cited by in corpus (39)

• Cosmology with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
• New Horizons for Fundamental Physics with LISA
• Gravity in the Era of Equality: Towards solutions to the Hubble problem without fine-tuned initial conditions
• Gravitational wave lensing beyond general relativity: birefringence, echoes and shadows
• Dark-Energy Instabilities induced by Gravitational Waves
• Perturbations of Stealth Black Holes in DHOST Theories
• Measuring the propagation speed of gravitational waves with LISA
• Cosmological constraints on dark energy in light of gravitational wave bounds
• Kinetic screening in nonlinear stellar oscillations and gravitational collapse
• Effective Field Theory of Black Hole Perturbations with Timelike Scalar Profile: Formulation
• Gravitational waves and geometrical optics in scalar-tensor theories
• Consistency relations for large-scale structure in modified gravity and the matter bispectrum
• Testing gravitational wave propagation with multiband detections
• Symmetric Teleparallel Horndeski Gravity
• Degeneracy, matter coupling, and disformal transformations in scalar-tensor theories
• Black hole hairs in scalar-tensor gravity and the lack thereof
• New constraints on cosmological modified gravity theories from anisotropic three-point correlation functions of BOSS DR12 galaxies
• Positivity bounds from multiple vacua and their cosmological consequences
• Violation of the consistency relations for large-scale structure with dark energy
• Effective description of generalized disformal theories
• Positivity in the effective field theory of cosmological perturbations
• Graviton to Photon Conversion via Parametric Resonance
• Propagation of scalar and tensor gravitational waves in Horndeski theory
• Relativistic stars in a cubic Galileon Universe
• Cosmological evolution of viable models in the generalized scalar-tensor theory
• UV sensitive one-loop matter power spectrum in degenerate higher-order scalar-tensor theories
• Robustness of kinetic screening against matter coupling
• Late time cosmological evolution in DHOST models
• Scalar emission from neutron star-black hole binaries in scalar-tensor theories with kinetic screening
• Stars disformally coupled to a shift-symmetric scalar field
• Dark energy with a shift-symmetric scalar field: obstacles, loophole hunting and dead ends
• On tachyonic stability priors for dark energy
• On the Coupling of Generalized Proca Fields to Degenerate Scalar-Tensor Theories
• Vainshtein Mechanism in Generalised Massive Gravity
• On preheating after inflation in general scalar-tensor theories of gravity
• Gravitational wave interactions in ${\Lambda }_3$ models of dark energy
• Confronting Einstein Yang Mills Higgs Dark Energy in light of observations
• Scalar-scalar-tensor interaction in DHOST theories
• Exact pp-wave solutions in shift-symmetric higher-order scalar-tensor theories