Spikes in the Relic Graviton Background from Quintessential Inflation

Abstract

The energy spectra of gravitational waves (GW) produced in quintessential inflationary models increase in frequency and exhibit a sharp spike around 170 GHz where the associated fraction of critical energy density today stored in relic gravitons is of the order of $10^{-6}$. We contrast our findings with the spectra of ordinary inflationary models and we comment about possible detetction strategies of the spike.