Constraining early dark energy with gravitational waves before recombination

Abstract

We show that the nonperturbative decay of ultralight scalars into Abelian gauge bosons, recently proposed as a possible solution to the Hubble tension, produces a stochastic background of gravitational waves which is constrained by the cosmic microwave background. We simulate the full nonlinear dynamics of resonant dark photon production and the associated gravitational wave production, finding the signals to exceed constraints for the entire parameter space we consider. Our findings suggest that gravitational wave production from the decay of early dark energy may provide a unique probe of these models.

5 pages + appendices, 5 figures; matches published version

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• Cosmological Tension of Ultralight Axion Dark Matter and its Solutions
• Parity violating gravitational waves at the end of inflation
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• Nonperturbative structure in coupled axion sectors and implications for direct detection
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• B-modes from Post-inflationary Gravitational Waves Sourced by Axionic Instabilities at Cosmic Reionization
• Twisting inflation to sub-Planckian axion decay constants