Precision cosmology and the stiff-amplified gravitational-wave background from inflation: NANOGrav, Advanced LIGO-Virgo and the Hubble tension

Abstract

The recent NANOGrav finding of a common-spectrum process has invited interpretations as possible evidence of a primordial stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB) stronger than predicted by standard inflation+LCDM. Such an SGWB would contribute an extra radiation component to the background Universe which may affect its expansion history. As such, it may help alleviate the current Hubble tension, a novel connection between gravitational waves and cosmology. We demonstrate this by considering a cosmological model, the "standard inflation + stiff amplification" scenario, with two components added to the LCDM model: a stiff component (w=1) and the primordial SGWB. Previously, we showed that even for standard inflation, the SGWB may be detectable at the high frequencies probed by laser interferometers, if it is amplified by a possible early stiff era after reheating. Models that boost the SGWB enough to cause significant backreaction, however, must still preserve the well-measured radiation-matter equality, as precision cosmology demands. For that, we calculate the fully-coupled evolution of the SGWB and expansion history, sampling parameter space (tensor-to-scalar ratio, reheating temperature and temperature at stiff-to-radiation equality). We then perform a joint analysis of the NANOGrav results and latest upper bounds from Planck, big bang nucleosynthesis and Advanced LIGO-Virgo, to constrain the model. The resulting blue-tilted, stiff-amplified SGWB is still too small to explain the NANOGrav results. However, if someday, Advanced LIGO-Virgo detects the SGWB, our model can explain it within standard inflation (without requiring an initial blue tilt). Meanwhile, this model may bring current high-z measurements of the Hubble constant within 3.4 sigma of the low-z measurements by SH0ES (from 4.4 sigma) and within 2.6 sigma of those by H0LiCOW (from 3.1 sigma), reducing the tension.

arXiv comment31 pages, 11 figures. Published in JCAP. (This version) Updated to match the published version

References in corpus (70)

• Nine-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Parameter Results
• Advanced Virgo: a 2nd generation interferometric gravitational wave detector
• Advanced LIGO
• Planck 2018 results. X. Constraints on inflation
• Large Magellanic Cloud Cepheid Standards Provide a 1% Foundation for the Determination of the Hubble Constant and Stronger Evidence for Physics Beyond LambdaCDM
• Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
• H0LiCOW XIII. A 2.4% measurement of $H_0$ from lensed quasars: $5.3\sigma$ tension between early and late-Universe probes
• Gravitational Wave Experiments and Early Universe Cosmology
• Big Bang Nucleosynthesis: 2015
• Signature of Gravity Waves in Polarization of the Microwave Background
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year Data Set: Search For An Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• Relic neutrino decoupling including flavour oscillations
• Detecting a stochastic background of gravitational radiation: Signal processing strategies and sensitivities
• The trouble with $H_0$
• Quintessential inflation
• One percent determination of the primordial deuterium abundance
• New physics in light of the $H_0$ tension: an alternative view
• Detection methods for stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds: a unified treatment
• Upper Limits on the Isotropic Gravitational-Wave Background from Advanced LIGO's and Advanced Virgo's Third Observing Run
• The effects of He I 10830 on helium abundance determinations
• COBE, Gravitational Waves, Inflation and Extended Inflation
• On the Hubble constant tension in the SNe Ia Pantheon sample
• Signatures of Relativistic Neutrinos in CMB Anisotropy and Matter Clustering
• Precision measures of the primordial abundance of deuterium
• Adiabatic Modes in Cosmology
• Deflationary Universe Scenario
• The Sensitivity of Ligo to a Stochastic Background, and its Dependance on the Detector Orientations
• NANOGrav Hints to Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter
• How Massless Neutrinos Affect the Cosmic Microwave Background Damping Tail
• Probing the early universe with inflationary gravitational waves
• The Astrophysics of Nanohertz Gravitational Waves
• Cosmic String Interpretation of NANOGrav Pulsar Timing Data
• PArthENoPE: Public Algorithm Evaluating the Nucleosynthesis of Primordial Elements
• Has NANOGrav found first evidence for cosmic strings?
• Production and detection of relic gravitons in quintessential inflationary models
• A new determination of the primordial He abundance using the HeI 10830A emission line: cosmological implications
• Tensor Perturbations in Inflationary Models as a Probe of Cosmology
• Implications of the NANOGrav results for inflation
• Direct detection of the inflationary gravitational wave background
• Electroweak Baryogenesis and the Expansion Rate of the Universe
• Detectability of inflation-produced gravitational waves
• Relating gravitational wave constraints from primordial nucleosynthesis, pulsar timing, laser interferometers, and the CMB: implications for the early universe
• The BAO+BBN take on the Hubble tension
• Cosmological Constraints on Bose-Einstein-Condensed Scalar Field Dark Matter
• Gravitational-wave cosmology across 29 decades in frequency
• Cosmic Microwave Background Probes Models of Inflation
• Gravitational waves constraints on post-inflationary phases stiffer than radiation
• The Imprint of Gravitational Waves on the Cosmic Microwave Background
• Gravitational Waves and Dark Radiation from Dark Phase Transition: Connecting NANOGrav Pulsar Timing Data and Hubble Tension
• Turning Around the Sphaleron Bound: Electroweak Baryogenesis in an Alternative Post-inflationary Cosmology
• Searching For Gravitational Waves From Cosmological Phase Transitions With The NANOGrav 12.5-year dataset
• Quantum Effects In Cosmology
• Spikes in the Relic Graviton Background from Quintessential Inflation
• Ability of LIGO and LISA to probe the equation of state of the early Universe
• Probing the Universe through the Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background
• Prospects for determination of thermal history after inflation with future gravitational wave detectors
• Thermal history of the plasma and high-frequency gravitons
• Whispers from the dark side: Confronting light new physics with NANOGrav data
• Gravitational Wave and CMB Probes of Axion Kination
• Massive black hole binary systems and the NANOGrav 12.5 year results
• Blue-tilted inflationary tensor spectrum and reheating in the light of NANOGrav results
• Bose-Einstein-condensed scalar field dark matter and the gravitational wave background from inflation: new cosmological constraints and its detectability by LIGO
• NANOGrav results and Dark First Order Phase Transitions
• Stochastic backgrounds of relic gravitons, T$\Lambda$CDM paradigm and the stiff ages
• Inflationary Cosmology Connecting Dark Energy and Dark Matter
• Multi-wavelength constraints on the inflationary consistency relation
• The QCD Axion and Gravitational Waves in light of NANOGrav results
• Sensitivity of wide band detectors to quintessential gravitons
• Clarifying transfer function approximations for the large-scale gravitational wave background in $\Lambda$CDM
• Cosmic backgrounds of relic gravitons and their absolute normalization

Cited by in corpus (22)

• Cosmology with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
• Seven hints that early-time new physics alone is not sufficient to solve the Hubble tension
• On the evolution of the Hubble constant with the SNe Ia Pantheon Sample and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations: a feasibility study for GRB-cosmology in 2030
• Inflationary interpretation of the stochastic gravitational wave background signal detected by pulsar timing array experiments
• Primordial gravitational waves from NANOGrav: a broken power-law approach
• Probing Physics Beyond the Standard Model: Limits from BBN and the CMB Independently and Combined
• Cosmological Background Interpretation of Pulsar Timing Array Data
• Gravitational Wave and CMB Probes of Axion Kination
• Measuring Inflaton Couplings via Primordial Gravitational Waves
• Signatures of Non-thermal Dark Matter with Kination and Early Matter Domination: Gravitational Waves versus Laboratory Searches
• Relic gravitons and high-frequency detectors
• Inflation, space-borne interferometers and the expansion history of the Universe
• Waterfall stiff period can generate observable primordial gravitational waves
• Constraining the history of reheating with the NANOGrav 15-year data
• Fast Likelihood-free Reconstruction of Gravitational Wave Backgrounds
• How an era of kination impacts substructure and the dark matter annihilation rate
• Two Dynamical Scenarios for Binned Master Sample Interpretation
• A universal bound on the duration of a kination era
• Hydrodynamics of ultralight complex scalar field dark matter and its impact on the growth of structure
• Multimodality in the Search for New Physics in Pulsar Timing Data and the Case of Kination-amplified Gravitational-wave Background from Inflation
• SageNet: Fast Neural Network Emulation of the Stiff-amplified Gravitational Waves from Inflation
• Relic gravitons at intermediate frequencies and the expansion history of the Universe