1992/05/08 by Lawrence M. Krauss, L. M. Krauss, M. White +1 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.69.869
published as Phys.Rev.Lett.69:869-872,1992 · 13 pages, LaTeX and 1 figure (postscript) included
arxiv created 1992/05/08 · openalex publication_date 1992/08/10 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We reexamine the stochastic gravitational wave background resulting from inflation and its effect on the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). Measurement by the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite of a CMBR quadrupole anisotropy places an upper limit on the vacuum energy during inflation of \ensuremath\approxeq5\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi1016 GeV. Gravitational waves from inflation could produce the entire observed signal if the vacuum energy during inflation was as small as 1.5\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi1016 GeV at the 95% confidence level. This coincides with recent estimates of grand unification scales inferred from renormalization-group arguments, for Supersymmetric grand unified theories. Further tests of this possibility are examined, based on analyzing the energy density associated with gravitational waves from inflation.