Finding the chiral gravitational wave background of an axion-SU(2) inflationary model using CMB observations and laser interferometers

Understand

A detection of B-mode polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies would confirm the presence of a primordial gravitational wave background (GWB).

• In the inflation paradigm this would be an unprecedented probe of the energy scale of inflation as it is directly proportional to the power spectrum of the GWB.
• However, similar tensor perturbations can be produced by the matter fields present during inflation, breaking this simple relationship.
• It is therefore important to be able to distinguish between different generation mechanisms of the GWB.