Back to Search Start Over

Measuring inflaton couplings via primordial gravitational waves

Authors :
Basabendu Barman
Anish Ghoshal
Bohdan Grzadkowski
Anna Socha
Source :
Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol 2023, Iss 7, Pp 1-45 (2023)
Publication Year :
2023
Publisher :
SpringerOpen, 2023.

Abstract

Abstract We investigate the reach of future gravitational wave (GW) detectors in probing inflaton couplings with visible sector particles that can either be bosonic or fermionic in nature. Assuming reheating takes place through perturbative quantum production from vacuum in presence of classical inflaton background field, we find that the spectral energy density of the primordial GW generated during inflation becomes sensitive to inflaton-matter coupling. We conclude, obeying bounds from Big Bang Nucleosysthesis and Cosmic Microwave Background, that, e.g., inflaton-scalar couplings of the order of ~ 𝒪(10 −20) GeV fall within the sensitivity range of several proposed GW detector facilities. However, this prediction is sensitive to the size of the inflationary scale, nature of the inflaton-matter interaction and shape of the potential during reheating. Having found the time-dependent effective inflaton decay width, we also discuss its implications for dark matter (DM) production from the thermal plasma via UV freeze-in during reheating. It is shown, that one can reproduce the observed DM abundance for its mass up to several PeVs, depending on the dimension of the operator connecting DM with the thermal bath and the associated scale of the UV physics. Thus we promote primordial GW to observables sensitive to feebly coupled inflaton, which is very challenging if not impossible to test in conventional particle physics laboratories or astrophysical measurements.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
10298479
Volume :
2023
Issue :
7
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Journal of High Energy Physics
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.27d47f614d54092956621a9d61f60e7
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP07(2023)231