On the gauge dependence of scalar induced secondary gravitational waves during radiation and matter domination eras

Abstract

We revisit the vital issue of gauge dependence in the scalar-induced secondary gravitational waves (SIGWs), focusing on the radiation domination (RD) and matter domination (MD) eras. The energy density spectrum is the main physical observable in such induced gravitational waves. For various gauge choices, there has been a divergence in the energy density, $\Omega_{\text{GW}}$, of SIGWs. We calculate SIGWs in different gauges to quantify this divergence to address the gauge-dependent problem. In our previous studies, we had found that the energy density diverges in the polynomial power of conformal time (e.g., $\eta^6$ in uniform density gauge). We try to fix this discrepancy by adding a counter-term that removes the fictitious terms in secondary tensor perturbations. We graphically compare the calculations in various gauges and also comment on the physical origin of the observed gauge dependence.