The imprint of primordial gravitational waves on the CMB intensity profile

Abstract

We use the induced geometry on the two dimensional transverse cross section of a photon beam propagating on a perturbed Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) spacetime to find the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) photon distribution over a telescope's collecting area today. It turns out that at each line of sight the photons are diluted along a transverse direction due to gravitational shearing. The effect can be characterized by two spin-weight-two variables, which are reminiscent of the Stokes polarization parameters. Similar to that case, one can construct a scalar and a pseudo-scalar function where the latter only gets contributions from the tensor modes. We analytically determine the power spectrum of the pseudo-scalar at superhorizon scales in a simple inflationary model and briefly discuss possible observational consequences.

6 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Physics Letters B

References in corpus (1)

• Weak Lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background by Foreground Gravitational Waves

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