Gravitational-Wave Cosmology across 29 Decades in Frequency

Quantum fluctuations of the gravitational field in the early Universe, amplified by inflation, produce a primordial gravitational-wave background across a broad frequency band. We derive constraints on the spectrum of this gravitational radiation, and hence on theories of the early Universe, by comb...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. X 2016-03, Vol.6 (1), p.011035, Article 011035
Main Authors: Lasky, Paul D., Mingarelli, Chiara M. F., Smith, Tristan L., Giblin, John T., Thrane, Eric, Reardon, Daniel J., Caldwell, Robert, Bailes, Matthew, Bhat, N. D. Ramesh, Burke-Spolaor, Sarah, Dai, Shi, Dempsey, James, Hobbs, George, Kerr, Matthew, Levin, Yuri, Manchester, Richard N., Osłowski, Stefan, Ravi, Vikram, Rosado, Pablo A., Shannon, Ryan M., Spiewak, Renée, van Straten, Willem, Toomey, Lawrence, Wang, Jingbo, Wen, Linqing, You, Xiaopeng, Zhu, Xingjiang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amplification
Arrays
Astronomical models
Astronomy
ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
Baryons
Big bang cosmology
Big Bang theory
Black holes
Cosmic microwave background
Cosmic microwave background temperature
Cosmology
Data analysis
Expanding universe theory
Experiments
Flux density
Frequencies
Gravitational fields
Gravitational waves
Interferometers
LIGO (observatory)
Nuclear fusion
Nuclei (nuclear physics)
Observatories
Oscillations
Power spectra
Pulsars
Tensors
Universe
Wave power
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Summary:Quantum fluctuations of the gravitational field in the early Universe, amplified by inflation, produce a primordial gravitational-wave background across a broad frequency band. We derive constraints on the spectrum of this gravitational radiation, and hence on theories of the early Universe, by combining experiments that cover 29 orders of magnitude in frequency. These include Planck observations of cosmic microwave background temperature and polarization power spectra and lensing, together with baryon acoustic oscillations and big bang nucleosynthesis measurements, as well as new pulsar timing array and ground-based interferometer limits. While individual experiments constrain the gravitational-wave energy density in specific frequency bands, the combination of experiments allows us to constrain cosmological parameters, including the inflationary spectral index nt and the tensor-to-scalar ratio r . Results from individual experiments include the most stringent nanohertz limit of the primordial background to date from the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array, ΩGW(f)
ISSN:2160-3308
2160-3308
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevX.6.011035