Probing the reheating temperature of the universe with a gravitational wave background

Journal Article · Sun Jun 15 04:00:00 EDT 2008 · Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2008/06/020· OSTI ID:22156657

Nakayama, Kazunori ^[1]; Saito, Shun; Suwa, Yudai ^[2]; Yokoyama, Jun'ichi ^[3]

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1. Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8582 (Japan)
2. Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033 (Japan)
3. Research Center for the Early Universe (RESCEU), Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033 (Japan)

The thermal history of the universe after big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) is well understood both theoretically and observationally, and recent cosmological observations also begin to reveal the inflationary dynamics. However, the epoch between inflation and BBN is scarcely known. In this paper we show that the detection of the stochastic gravitational wave background around 1 Hz provides useful information about thermal history well before BBN. In particular, the reheating temperature of the universe may be determined by future space-based laser interferometer experiments such as DECIGO and/or BBO if it is around 10{sup 6-9} GeV, depending on the tensor-to-scalar ratio r and dilution factor F.

• OSTI ID: 22156657
• Journal Information: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics Journal Issue: 06 Vol. 2008; ISSN 1475-7516
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
GEV RANGE
GRAVITATIONAL WAVE DETECTORS
GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
INTERFEROMETERS
NUCLEOSYNTHESIS
PROBES
SCALARS
TEMPERATURE MEASUREMENT
TENSORS
UNIVERSE