Cosmological Evolution of Scale-invariant Gravity Waves

Abstract

The evolution of scale-invariant gravity waves from the early universe is analyzed using an equation of state which smoothly interpolates between the radiation dominated era and the present matter dominated era. We find that for large wavenumbers the standard scale-invarant wavefunction for the gravity wave severely {\it underestimates\/} the actual size of the gravity wave. Moreover, there is a definite shift in the {\it phase\/} of the gravity wave as it crosses the radiation-matter phase transition. The tensor-induced anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background and the present spectral energy density of the gravity wave is then calculated using these results.

14 pages plus 3 figures available upon request, RevTex, IP-ASTP-07-94

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• An Exact Calculation of the Energy Density of Cosmological Gravitational Waves
• The Polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background Due to Primordial Gravitational Waves
• Tangled magnetic fields and CMBR signal from reionization epoch
• Redshift-space fluctuations in stochastic gravitational wave background
• Simple Analytical Methods for Computing the Gravity-Wave Contribution to the Cosmic Background Radiation Anisotropy
• CBR Anisotropy from Primordial Gravitational Waves in Two-Component Inflationary Cosmology
• A Fast and Accurate Algorithm for Computing Tensor CBR Anisotropy
• Applications of Cosmological Perturbation Theory in the Late Universe