Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2004-12-21
Annals Phys. 318 (2005) 2-36
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
38 pages, 15 figures, submitted to Annals of Physics
Scientific paper
10.1016/j.aop.2005.03.005
We develop an analytic approach to calculation of the temperature and polarisation power spectra of the cosmic microwave background due to inflationary gravitational waves. This approach complements the more precise numerical results by providing insight into the physical origins of the features in the power spectra. We explore the use of analytic approximations for the gravitational-wave evolution, making use of the WKB approach to handle the radiation-matter transition. In the process, we describe scaling relations for the temperature and polarisation power spectra. We illustrate the dependence of the amplitude, shape, and peak locations on the details of recombination, the gravitational-wave power spectrum, and the cosmological parameters, and explain the origin of the peak locations in the temperature and polarisation power spectra. The decline in power on small scales in the polarisation power spectra is discussed in terms of phase-damping. In an appendix we detail numerical techniques for integrating the gravitational-wave evolution in the presence of anisotropic stress from free-streaming neutrinos.
Kamionkowski Marc
Pritchard Jonathan R.
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