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Related papers: Gravitational Waves from Spectator Scalar Fields

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We discuss the possibility of a feature in the spectrum of inflationary gravitational waves sourced by a scalar field $\chi$ whose vacuum fluctuations are amplified by a rapidly time dependent mass. Unlike previous work which has focused on…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2017-08-09 Cody Goolsby-Cole , Lorenzo Sorbo

We study the trispectrum of the gravitational waves (GWs) generated through the dynamics of an axionic spectator field and SU(2) gauge fields during inflation. In non-Abelian gauge theory, the gauge fields have four-point self-interactions,…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2022-01-06 Tomohiro Fujita , Kai Murai , Ippei Obata , Maresuke Shiraishi

In this paper, we investigate chiral gravitational wave (GW) signals generated from inflation to reheating, driven by a parity-violating (PV) term coupled to the inflaton. During inflation, the PV term reduces the sound horizon for…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2024-10-17 Chengjie Fu , Chao Chen , Yi Wang

A fast-rolling axion can transfer its kinetic energy to a gauge field via the Chern-Simons coupling, leading to copious production of gauge quanta, which can act as a source of gravitational waves (GWs) with potentially observable…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2025-10-21 Kai-Ge Zhang , Jian-Feng He , Chengjie Fu , Zong-Kuan Guo

In many models of inflation, the period of accelerated expansion ends with preheating, a highly non-thermal phase of evolution during which the inflaton pumps energy into a specific set of momentum modes of field(s) to which it is coupled.…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-11 Richard Easther , Eugene A. Lim

We investigate two classes of inflationary models, which lead to a stiff period after inflation that boosts the signal of primordial gravitational waves (GWs). In both families of models studied, we consider an oscillating scalar…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2024-10-10 Chao Chen , Konstantinos Dimopoulos , Cem Eröncel , Anish Ghoshal

We consider the inflationary universe with a spectator scalar field coupled to a $U(1)$ gauge field and calculate curvature perturbation and gravitational waves (GWs). We find that the sourced GWs can be larger than the one from vacuum…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2018-07-25 Tomohiro Fujita , Ippei Obata , Takahiro Tanaka , Shuichiro Yokoyama

We revisit the possibility of producing observable tensor modes through a continuous particle production process during inflation. Particularly, we focus on the multi-field realization of inflation where a spectator pseudo-scalar $\sigma$…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2018-05-03 Ogan Özsoy

Generation of magnetic fields during inflation is a promising mechanism for the origin of the observed large scale magnetic fields in the universe. Among several attempts, a popular model is one where the inflaton and the electromagnetic…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2020-05-27 Ramkishor Sharma , Kandaswamy Subramanian , T. R. Seshadri

After inflation, a period of preheating may have produced a stochastic background of high frequency gravitational waves (GWs) that would persist until today. The nature of the inflaton's coupling to Standard Model or other fields is…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2015-08-19 Jeffrey M. Hyde

We study the possibility that particle production during inflation could source observable gravity waves on scales relevant for Cosmic Microwave Background experiments. A crucial constraint on such scenarios arises because particle…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-05 Neil Barnaby , Jordan Moxon , Ryo Namba , Marco Peloso , Gary Shiu , Peng Zhou

We consider gravitational wave production during inflation in type IIB string theory, and the possibility of observable gravitational waves in small field inflation. We show that the gauge field excitations on a set of coincident D7 branes,…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2018-11-21 Evan McDonough , Stephon Alexander

A variety of mechanisms in the early Universe lead to the generation of gravitational waves (GWs). We introduce here a novel source of GWs generated by vacuum fluctuations after inflation. Given that gravitons are minimally coupled…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2026-04-09 Alina Mierna , Gabriele Perna , Sabino Matarrese , Nicola Bartolo , Angelo Ricciardone

We investigate the production and detection of gravitational waves (GWs) within the framework of Gravitational Quantum Field Theory (GQFT). In this theory, GWs exhibit five propagating modes: one scalar, two vector, and two tensor modes.…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2025-06-27 Yuan-Kun Gao , Da Huang , Yue-Liang Wu

Stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds (SGWBs) receive increasing attention and provide a new possibility to directly probe the early Universe. In the preheating process at the end of inflation, parametric resonance can generate large…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2022-01-11 Rong-Gen Cai , Zong-Kuan Guo , Pei-Ze Ding , Cheng-Jie Fu , Jing Liu

The original axion natural inflation model predicts a tensor-to-scalar ratio exceeding experimental limits. Conversely, in aligned axion inflation, inflation can proceed along trajectories emerging from near a saddle point of the two-field…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2025-10-21 Federico Greco

Large excursion of the inflaton field can trigger interesting dynamics. One important example is a first-order phase transition in a spectator sector which couples to the inflaton. Gravitational waves (GWs) from such a first-order phase…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2022-06-13 Haipeng An , Kun-Feng Lyu , Lian-Tao Wang , Siyi Zhou

We investigate a novel gravitational wave (GW) production mechanism from gravitons generated during the pre-thermal phase of cosmic reheating, where the energy density is dominated by non-thermalized inflaton decay products, dubbed…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2025-07-23 Nicolás Bernal , Quan-feng Wu , Xun-Jie Xu , Yong Xu

We discuss a cosmological scenario with a stochastic background of gravitational waves sourced by the tensor perturbation due to a hybrid inflationary model with cubic potential. The tensor-to-scalar ratio for the present hybrid…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2024-11-18 Rinsy Thomas , Jobil Thomas , Supin P Surendran , Minu Joy

Inflation generates gravitational waves, which may be observable in the low multipoles of the cosmic microwave background (cmb) anisotropy but only if the inflaton field variation is at least of order the Planck scale. Such a large…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2009-10-28 David H. Lyth