Quantum production of gravitational waves after inflation
Fuente:
arXiv
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| Autores principales: | , , , , |
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| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2025
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | |
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| _version_ | 1866913014262792192 |
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| author | Mierna, Alina Perna, Gabriele Matarrese, Sabino Bartolo, Nicola Ricciardone, Angelo |
| author_facet | Mierna, Alina Perna, Gabriele Matarrese, Sabino Bartolo, Nicola Ricciardone, Angelo |
| contents | 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 particles, their quantum creation takes place during inflation, but is absent in an unperturbed Universe during the radiation-dominated epoch, since they behave as conformally coupled particles. However, the presence of inhomogeneities breaks the conformal flatness of the metric, allowing scalar metric perturbations to induce the quantum production of gravitons. We compute the resulting GW spectrum from this mechanism for different models of the primordial scalar power spectrum. We find that this GW signal peaks around the GHz frequency range, distinguishing it from other astrophysical and cosmological backgrounds and underscoring the need for detectors sensitive to these high frequencies. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_08737 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Quantum production of gravitational waves after inflation Mierna, Alina Perna, Gabriele Matarrese, Sabino Bartolo, Nicola Ricciardone, Angelo General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Physics - Theory 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 particles, their quantum creation takes place during inflation, but is absent in an unperturbed Universe during the radiation-dominated epoch, since they behave as conformally coupled particles. However, the presence of inhomogeneities breaks the conformal flatness of the metric, allowing scalar metric perturbations to induce the quantum production of gravitons. We compute the resulting GW spectrum from this mechanism for different models of the primordial scalar power spectrum. We find that this GW signal peaks around the GHz frequency range, distinguishing it from other astrophysical and cosmological backgrounds and underscoring the need for detectors sensitive to these high frequencies. |
| title | Quantum production of gravitational waves after inflation |
| topic | General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Phenomenology High Energy Physics - Theory |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.08737 |