1992/12/16 by George F. Smoot, G. F. Smoot, Paul J. Steinhardt
Physics and Astronomy · #Anisotropy #Astrophysics #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Classical mechanics #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Gravitational wave #Inflation (cosmology) #Physics #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Relativity and Gravitational Theory #Spectral density #Theoretical physics #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0264-9381/10/s/002
published as Class.Quant.Grav.10:S19-S32,1993 · 15 pages, UPR-0543T
arxiv created 1992/12/16 · openalex publication_date 1993/12/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Could COBE DMR be detecting the imprint from a spectrum of gravitational waves generated during inflation? The conventional inflationary prediction had been that the cosmic microwave anisotropy is dominated by energy density fluctuations generated during inflation and that the gravitational waves contribute negligibly. The authors report on recent work that has shown that the conventional wisdom may be wrong; specifically, gravitational waves may dominate the anisotropy in inflationary models where the spectrum of perturbations deviates significantly from scale invariance (e.g., extended and power-law inflation models and extreme versions of chaotic inflation). If gravitational waves do dominate at the large-angular scales measured by COBE DMR, the expectation and interpretation of anisotropies on small-angular scales is profoundly altered.