CMB anisotropies caused by gravitational waves: A parameter study

Abstract

Anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation due to gravity waves are investigated. An initial spectrum of gravity waves may have been induced during an epoch of inflation. We study the propagation of such a spectrum in a Friedmann background of hot and cold dark matter, radiation and (possibly) a cosmological constant. We finally calculate its imprint as anisotropies on the cosmic microwave background. We also take into account that massless particles can source gravity waves by their anisotropic stresses. We consider general mixed dark matter models with and without cosmological constant. For a given, scale invariant input spectrum of gravity we determine the dependence of the resulting spectrum of CMB anisotropies on the different model parameters.