Is the squeezing of relic gravitational waves produced by inflation detectable?
- 27 December 1999
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review D
- Vol. 61 (2) , 024024
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.61.024024
Abstract
Grishchuk has shown that the stochastic background of gravitational waves produced by an inflationary phase in the early Universe has an unusual property: it is not a stationary Gaussian random process. Because of squeezing, the phases of the different waves are correlated in a deterministic way, arising from the process of parametric amplification that created them. The resulting random process is Gaussian but non-stationary. This provides a unique signature that could in principle distinguish a background created by inflation from stationary stochastic backgrounds created by other types of processes. We address the question: could this signature be observed with a gravitational wave detector? Sadly, the answer appears to be no: an experiment which could distinguish the non-stationary behavior would have to last approximately the age of the Universe at the time of measurement. This rules out direct detection by ground and space based gravitational wave detectors, but not indirect detections via the electromagnetic cosmic microwave background radiation.Keywords
All Related Versions
This publication has 16 references indexed in Scilit:
- Detecting a stochastic background of gravitational radiation: Signal processing strategies and sensitivitiesPhysical Review D, 1999
- Detectability of inflationary gravitational waves with microwave background polarizationPhysical Review D, 1998
- Detectability of inflation-produced gravitational wavesPhysical Review D, 1997
- Semiclassicality and decoherence of cosmological perturbationsClassical and Quantum Gravity, 1996
- Inflation and squeezed quantum statesPhysical Review D, 1994
- CBR anisotropy from primordial gravitational waves in inflationary cosmologiesPhysical Review D, 1994
- Quantum effects in cosmologyClassical and Quantum Gravity, 1993
- LIGO: The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave ObservatoryScience, 1992
- Particle Physics and Inflationary CosmologyPublished by Taylor & Francis ,1990
- On the quantum state of relic gravitonsClassical and Quantum Gravity, 1989