Nearly scale invariant spectrum of gravitational radiation from global phase transitions

Katherine Jones-Smith, Lawrence M. Krauss, Harsh Mathur

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

62 Scopus citations

Abstract

Using a large N sigma model approximation we explicitly calculate the power spectrum of gravitational waves arising from a global phase transition in the early Universe and we confirm that it is scale invariant, implying an observation of such a spectrum may not be a unique feature of inflation. Moreover, the predicted amplitude can be over 3 orders of magnitude larger than the naive dimensional estimate, implying that even a transition that occurs after inflation may dominate in cosmic microwave background polarization or other gravity wave signals.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number131302
JournalPhysical Review Letters
Volume100
Issue number13
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2 2008
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy

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