Primordial Gravitational Waves Assisted by Cosmological Scalar Perturbations

Abstract

Primordial gravitational waves are a crucial prediction of inflation theory, and their detection through their imprints on the cosmic microwave background is actively being pursued. However, these attempts have not yet been successful. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to detect primordial gravitational waves by searching for a signal of second-order tensor perturbations. These perturbations were produced due to nonlinear couplings between the linear tensor and scalar perturbations in the early universe. We anticipate a blue-tilted tensor spectral index, and suggest that the tensor-to-scalar ratio can potentially be measured with high precision using a detector network composed of the ground-based Einstein Telescope and the space-borne LISA project on a decade timescale.