High Frequency Spectrum of Primordial Gravitational Waves

Abstract

During inflation long wavelength gravitational waves are produced, which form stochastic background in the present universe with very wide range of frequencies. Higher frequency gravitational waves never experience super-Hubble-radius regime, but they are also amplified after inflation due to the inflaton oscillation. Taking account of the inflaton dynamics after inflation, the spectrum of such quantum-mechanically produced gravitational waves may extend to much higher frequencies than previously thought. In this paper we calculate the spectrum of high frequency gravitational waves produced during and after inflation in detail, in particular focusing on the connection between the low and high frequency regime, and show that the detailed spectrum can distinguish inflation models.