Limit on the Detectability of the Energy Scale of Inflation

2002/02/15 by Lloyd Knox, Yong‐Seon Song, Yong-Seon Song · 9 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #astro-ph #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.89.011303

published as Phys.Rev.Lett. 89 (2002) 011303 · 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PRL

arxiv created 2002/02/15 · openalex publication_date 2002/06/18 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We show that the polarization of the cosmic microwave background can be used to detect gravity waves from inflation if the energy scale of inflation is above 2x10(15) GeV. These gravity waves generate polarization patterns with a curl, whereas (to first order in perturbation theory) density perturbations do not. The limiting "noise" arises from the second-order generation of curl from density perturbations, or rather residuals from its subtraction. We calculate optimal sky coverage and detectability limits as a function of detector sensitivity and observing time.

Citations

• Signature of Gravity Waves in the Polarization of the Microwave Background
• Ekpyrotic universe: Colliding branes and the origin of the hot big bang

Cited by

• Determining Neutrino Mass from the Cosmic Microwave Background Alone
• Inflationary cosmology connecting dark energy and dark matter
• Primordial Gravity Waves and Weak Lensing
• Weak lensing of the primary CMB bispectrum
• Limits on the detectability of the CMB B-mode polarization imposed by foregrounds
• Observational Constraints on Cosmic String Production During Brane Inflation
• Cosmic shear from scalar-induced gravitational waves
• Constraints on standard and non-standard early universe models from CMBB-mode polarization
• CMBB-mode polarization from Thomson scattering in the local universe