Thermal effects and scalar modes in the cosmological propagation of gravitational waves

Abstract

We consider thermal effects in the propagation of gravitational waves on a cosmological background. In particular, we consider scalar field cosmologies and study gravitational modes near cosmological singularities. We point out that the contribution of thermal radiation can heavily affect the dynamics of gravitational waves giving enhancement or dissipation effects both at quantum and classical level. These effects are considered both in General Relativity and in modified theories like F ( R ) gravity which can be easily reduced to scalar–tensor cosmology. The possible detection and disentanglement of standard and scalar gravitational modes on the stochastic background are also discussed.