Precision early universe cosmology from stochastic gravitational waves

Abstract

The causal tail of stochastic gravitational waves can be used to probe the energy density in free streaming relativistic species as well as measure g*(T) and beta functions β(T) as a function of temperature. In the event of the discovery of loud stochastic gravitational waves, we demonstrate that LISA can measure the free streaming fraction of the universe down to the the 10−3 level, 100 times more sensitive than current constraints. Additionally, it would be sensitive to mathcal{O} (1) deviations of g* and the QCD β function from their Standard Model value at temperatures ~ 105 GeV. In this case, many motivated models such as split SUSY and other solutions to the Electroweak Hierarchy problem would be tested. Future detectors, such as DECIGO, would be 100 times more sensitive than LISA to these effects and be capable of testing other motivated scenarios such as WIMPs and axions. The amazing prospect of using precision gravitational wave measurements to test such well motivated theories provides a benchmark to aim for when developing a precise understanding of the gravitational wave spectrum both experimentally and theoretically.