Analytic spectrum of relic gravitational waves modified by neutrino free streaming and dark energy

Abstract

We include the effect of neutrino free streaming into the spectrum of relic gravitational waves (RGWs) in the currently accelerating universe. For the realistic case of a varying fractional neutrino energy density and a non-vanishing derivative of mode function at the neutrino decoupling, the integro-differential equation of RGWs is solved by a perturbation method for the period from the neutrino decoupling to the matter-dominant stage. Incorporating it to the analytic solution of the whole history of expansion of the universe, the analytic solution of GRWs is obtained, evolving from the inflation up to the current acceleration. The resulting spectrum of GRWs covers the whole range of frequency $(10^{-19}\sim 10^{10})$Hz, and improves the previous results. It is found that the neutrino free-streaming causes a reduction of the spectral amplitude by $\sim 20%$ in the range $(10^{-16}\sim 10^{-10})$ Hz, and leaves the other portion of the spectrum almost unchanged. This agrees with the earlier numerical calculations. Examination is made on the difference between the accelerating and non-accelerating models, and our analysis shows that the ratio of the spectral amplitude in accelerating $\Lambda$CDM model over that in CDM model is $\sim 0.7$, and within the various accelerating models of $\Omega_{\Lambda}> \Omega_m $ the spectral amplitude is proportional to $ \Omega_m/\Omega_{\Lambda}$ for the whole range of frequency. Comparison with LIGO S5 Runs Sensitivity shows that RGWs are not yet detectable by the present LIGO, and in the future LISA may be able to detect RGWs in some inflationary models.