Signatures of the neutrino thermal history in the spectrum of primordial gravitational waves

DOI10.1007/S10714-010-0994-4zbMATH Open1213.85056arXiv1009.6110OpenAlexW1995316223MaRDI QIDQ538378FDOQ538378

Authors: Riccardo Benini, M. Lattanzi, Giovanni Montani 

Publication date: 25 May 2011

Published in: General Relativity and Gravitation (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: In this paper we study the effect of the anisotropic stress generated by neutrinos on the propagation of primordial cosmological gravitational waves. The presence of anisotropic stress, like the one generated by free-streaming neutrinos, partially absorbs the gravitational waves (GWs) propagating across the Universe. We find that in the standard case of three neutrino families, 22% of the intensity of the wave is absorbed, in fair agreement with previous studies. We have also calculated the maximum possible amount of damping, corresponding to the case of a flat Universe completely dominated by ultrarelativistic collisionless particles. In this case 43% of the intensity of the wave is absorbed. Finally, we have taken into account the effect of collisions, using a simple form for the collision term parameterized by the mean time between interactions, that allows to go smoothly from the case of a tigthly-coupled fluid to that of a collisionless gas. The dependence of the absorption on the neutrino energy density and on the effectiveness of the interactions opens the interesting possibility of observing spectral features related to particular events in the thermal history of the Universe, like neutrino decoupling and electron-positron annihilation, both occurring at T~1 MeV. GWs entering the horizon at that time will have today a frequency $usim10^{-9}Hz$, a region that is going to be probed by Pulsar Timing Arrays.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1009.6110

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zbMATH Keywords

gravitational wavesneutrinos

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Electromagnetic interaction; quantum electrodynamics (81V10) Approximation procedures, weak fields in general relativity and gravitational theory (83C25) Relativistic cosmology (83F05) Astrophysical cosmology (85A40) Gravitational waves (83C35)

Cites Work

• Topology of cosmic domains and strings
• Cosmic string production towards the end of brane inflation
• Title not available (Why is that?)
• Cosmic microwave background fluctuations from gravitational waves: an analytic approach

Cited In (6)

• C\({\nu}\)B damping of primordial gravitational waves and the fine-tuning of the C\(\gamma\)B temperature anisotropy
• Review of the possible role of self-ordering scalar fields in production of a stochastic background of gravitational waves
• A possible signature of cosmic neutrino decoupling in the nHz region of the spectrum of primordial gravitational waves
• Landau damping for gravitational waves in parity-violating theories
• Flavor ratios of astrophysical neutrinos interacting with stochastic gravitational waves having arbitrary spectra
• Torsional birefringence in metric-affine Chern-Simons gravity: gravitational waves in late-time cosmology

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