The CMB Rayleigh-Jeans tail as a detector of high-frequency gravitational waves
| Autor: | Domcke, Valerie, Garcia Cely, Camilo |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
magnetic field: high
photon gravitational radiation: background Astrophysics::Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics gravitational radiation Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics cosmic background radiation frequency: high background: stochastic recombination detector: sensitivity Boltzmann equation gravitational radiation: emission ionization energy: density plasma: thermal gravitational radiation: frequency |
| DOI: | 10.3204/pubdb-2020-03316 |
| Popis: | In the presence of magnetic fields, gravitational waves are converted into photons and vice versa. We demonstrate that this conversion leads to a distortion of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), which can serve as a detector for MHz to GHz gravitational wave sources active before reionization. The measurements of the radio telescope EDGES can be cast as a bound on the gravitational wave amplitude, $h_c < 10^{-21} (10^{-12})$ at 78 MHz, for the strongest (weakest) cosmic magnetic fields allowed by current astrophysical and cosmological constraints. Similarly, the results of ARCADE 2 imply $h_c < 10^{-24} (10^{-14})$ at $3 - 30$ GHz. For the strongest magnetic fields, these constraints exceed current laboratory constraints by about seven orders of magnitude. Future advances in 21cm astronomy may conceivably push these bounds below the sensitivity of cosmological constraints on the total energy density of gravitational waves. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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