Gravitons and Temperature Fluctuation Correlations from Inflation

Abstract

Inflationary tensor perturbations are treated as arising from a bath of gravitons produced by quantum particle creation at the end of inflation. We calculate the correlation function of the CMB temperature fluctuations produced by these gravitons in a model with an infrared cut off. The CMB photons are emitted from within a last scattering shell of finite thickness in redshift. We find the correlation function in terms of the separation of a pair of spacetime points of emission in both angle and redshift. In both variables, there is a significant amount of anti-correlation. The anti-correlation minimum has a relative magnitude compared to the central correlation maximum of about 20% in angle and 50% in redshift.