1996/06/20 by David H. Lyth · 16 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.78.1861
published as Phys.Rev.Lett. 78 (1997) 1861-1863 · 3 pages
arxiv created 1996/06/20 · openalex publication_date 1997/03/10 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Inflation generates gravitational waves, which may be observable in the low multipoles of the cosmic microwave background anisotropy but only if the inflaton field variation is at least of order the Planck scale. Such a large variation would imply that the model of inflation cannot be part of an ordinary extension of the standard model, and combined with the detection of the waves it would also suggest that the inflaton field cannot be one of the superstring moduli. Another implication of observable gravitational waves would be a potential V1/4\phantom\rule0ex0ex=\phantom\rule0ex0ex2 to 4\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi1016\phantom\rule0ex0exGeV, which is orders of magnitude bigger than the prediction of most models.