2008/01/31 by Richard Easther, John T. Giblin, John T. Giblin Jr +3 · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Amplitude #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmic background radiation #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Econometrics #Economics #Gravitational wave #Gravitational wave background #Inflation (cosmology) #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum mechanics #Unobservable #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1475-7516/2008/05/013
published as JCAP 0805:013,2008 · 21 pages, 4 figures; accepted for JCAP; a reference added; table reformatted
arxiv created 2008/04/29 · openalex publication_date 2008/05/14 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We consider the impact of thermal inflation—a short, secondary period of inflation that can arise in supersymmetric scenarios—on the stochastic gravitational wave background. We show that while the primordial inflationary gravitational wave background is essentially unchanged at cosmic microwave background scales, it is massively diluted at solar system scales and would be unobservable by a Big Bang Observer (BBO) style experiment. Conversely, bubble collisions at the end of thermal inflation can generate a new stochastic background. We calculate the likely properties of the bubbles created during this phase transition, and show that the expected amplitude and frequency of this signal would fall within the BBO range.