Detectable Gravitational Wave Signals from Inflationary Preheating

Understand

We consider gravitational wave (GW) production during preheating in hybrid inflation models where an axion-like waterfall field couples to Abelian gauge fields.

• Based on a linear analysis, we find that the GW signal from such models can be within the reach of a variety of foreseeable GW experiments such as LISA, AEDGE, ET and CE, and is close to that of LIGO A+, both in terms of frequency range and signal strength.
• Furthermore, the resultant GW signal is helically polarized and thus may distinguish itself from other sources of stochastic GW background.
• Finally, such models can produce primordial black holes that can compose dark matter and lead to merger events detectable by GW detectors.