Gravitational wave production from preheating: parameter dependence

Abstract

Parametric resonance is among the most efficient phenomena generating gravitational waves (GWs) in the early Universe. The dynamics of parametric resonance, and hence of the GWs, depend exclusively on the resonance parameter q. The latter is determined by the properties of each scenario: the initial amplitude and potential curvature of the oscillating field, and its coupling to other species. Previous works have only studied the GW production for fixed value(s) of q. We present an analytical derivation of the GW amplitude dependence on q, valid for any scenario, which we confront against numerical results. By running lattice simulations in an expanding grid, we study for a wide range of q values, the production of GWs in post-inflationary preheating scenarios driven by parametric resonance. We present simple fits for the final amplitude and position of the local maxima in the GW spectrum. Our parametrization allows to predict the location and amplitude of the GW background today, for an arbitrary q. The GW signal can be rather large, as h2ΩGW(fp) ≲ 10−11, but it is always peaked at high frequencies fp ≳ 107 Hz. We also discuss the case of spectator-field scenarios, where the oscillatory field can be e.g. a curvaton, or the Standard Model Higgs.