Particle production during inflation and gravitational waves detectable by ground-based interferometers

Jessica L. Cook and Lorenzo Sorbo
Phys. Rev. D 85, 023534 – Published 27 January 2012; Erratum Phys. Rev. D 86, 069901 (2012)

Abstract

Inflation typically predicts a quasiscale-invariant spectrum of gravitational waves. In models of slow-roll inflation, the amplitude of such a background is too small to allow direct detection without a dedicated space-based experiment such as the proposed BBO or DECIGO. In this paper we note that particle production during inflation can generate a feature in the spectrum of primordial gravitational waves. We discuss the possibility that such a feature might be detected by ground-based laser interferometers such as Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo, which will become operational in the next few years. We also discuss the prospects of detection by a space interferometer like LISA. We first study gravitational waves induced by nonperturbative, explosive particle production during inflation: while explosive production of scalar quanta does not generate a significant bump in the primordial tensor spectrum, production of vectors can. We also show that chiral gravitational waves produced by electromagnetic fields amplified by an axionlike inflaton could be detectable by Advanced LIGO.

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  • Received 23 September 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.85.023534

© 2012 American Physical Society

Erratum

Authors & Affiliations

Jessica L. Cook* and Lorenzo Sorbo

  • Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA

  • *jlcook@physics.umass.edu
  • sorbo@physics.umass.edu

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Issue

Vol. 85, Iss. 2 — 15 January 2012

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