Gravitational Waves sourced by Gauge Fields during Inflation
Fuente:
arXiv
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1866915873174847488 |
|---|---|
| author | Teuscher, Martin Durrer, Ruth Martineau, Killian Barrau, Aurélien |
| author_facet | Teuscher, Martin Durrer, Ruth Martineau, Killian Barrau, Aurélien |
| contents | We study the inflationary gravitational wave background induced by Abelian gauge fields generated by non-minimal kinetic and axial couplings to the inflaton. We show that, up to slow-roll corrections, for coupling functions that share the same dependence on conformal time, the gravitational wave spectrum is nearly scale invariant. We also derive its amplitude for generic gauge field coupling parameters, within the slow-roll approximation. The coupling values and the scale of inflation for which the induced gravitational wave background is observable, while ensuring that back-reaction on the inflationary dynamics remains negligible, are calculated. We find that a sizeable axial coupling can boost this secondary gravitational wave signal above the standard inflationary background. In the course of our analysis, we also show how to analytically match tensor perturbations across an arbitrary number of eras with different equations of state. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_00869 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Gravitational Waves sourced by Gauge Fields during Inflation Teuscher, Martin Durrer, Ruth Martineau, Killian Barrau, Aurélien Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology We study the inflationary gravitational wave background induced by Abelian gauge fields generated by non-minimal kinetic and axial couplings to the inflaton. We show that, up to slow-roll corrections, for coupling functions that share the same dependence on conformal time, the gravitational wave spectrum is nearly scale invariant. We also derive its amplitude for generic gauge field coupling parameters, within the slow-roll approximation. The coupling values and the scale of inflation for which the induced gravitational wave background is observable, while ensuring that back-reaction on the inflationary dynamics remains negligible, are calculated. We find that a sizeable axial coupling can boost this secondary gravitational wave signal above the standard inflationary background. In the course of our analysis, we also show how to analytically match tensor perturbations across an arbitrary number of eras with different equations of state. |
| title | Gravitational Waves sourced by Gauge Fields during Inflation |
| topic | Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.00869 |