Imprints of Cosmic Phase Transition in Inflationary Gravitational Waves

TL;DR

This paper explores how cosmic phase transitions influence the spectrum of primordial gravitational waves from inflation, showing that such transitions can suppress high-frequency wave amplitudes, making the spectrum a potential probe of early universe events.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of the impact of cosmic phase transitions on inflationary gravitational wave spectra, highlighting their potential as probes of early universe physics.

Findings

High-frequency gravitational wave amplitudes are suppressed by phase transitions.

The gravitational wave spectrum can serve as a probe for early universe phase transitions.

Abstract

We discuss the effects of cosmic phase transition on the spectrum of primordial gravitational waves generated during inflation. The energy density of the scalar condensation responsible for the phase transition may become sizable at the epoch of phase transition, which significantly affects the evolution of the universe. As a result, the amplitudes of the gravitational waves at high frequency modes are suppressed. Thus the gravitational wave spectrum can be a probe of phase transition in the early universe.