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Cosmological gravitational waves and their interaction with large-scale magnetic fields
Stockholm University, Faculty of Science, Department of Astronomy.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-6082-0615
2024 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

The thesis explores the interactions between cosmological gravitational waves (GWs) and large-scale magnetic fields. GWs are radiation produced by spacetime variations of the stress-energy tensor. Due to the weak coupling between gravity and the matter sector, GWs are a unique messenger from the early Universe before the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Magnetic fields are observed across the Universe from the scales of planets and stars to galaxies and clusters, as well as the voids beyond the clusters. The present-day large-scale magnetic fields are believed to have evolved from primordial seed fields via magnetogenesis mechanisms active during the cosmic inflation and reheating epochs or the cosmological phase transitions occurring at the electroweak (EW) or quantum chromodynamic (QCD) scales in the early radiation-dominated (RD) era. The production of stochastic GW backgrounds (SGWBs) can be expected from the primordial electromagnetic (EM) fields or magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence around the time of EW and QCD phase transitions. The SGWBs then propagate through the pre-CMB Universe until the present day, carrying with them essential imprints of the corresponding sources as well as the underlying gravity theory at the early times. Since MHD turbulence is ubiquitously expected in the RD era, their induced SGWB spectrum is extensively studied.In one aspect of the thesis, we demonstrate that the MHD-GW system exhibits features of modified gravity (MG) in terms of the spectral slopes and amplitudes of the relic SGWB. We compute the spectra of GWs produced by MHD turbulence at the EW and QCD phase transitions, assuming massive gravity and scalar-tensor theories as two MG examples. Then we comparatively analyze these modified GW spectra with their counterparts in general relativity, and determine their qualitative and quantitative differences due to three effective MG parameters – graviton mass, GW friction, and GW speed. These spectral features are compared against the existing pulsar timing array (PTA) measurement in the nHz band as well as the expected GW detection sensitivities of upcoming instruments such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) in the mHz band and Square Kilometer Array (SKA) as a PTA. The framework is general and can be applied to non-MHD sourced GW spectra. However, fixing MHD sources yields concrete constraints on the effective MG parameters.The other aspect of the thesis concerns the interaction between SGWBs from the early Universe and large-scale magnetic fields in the post-CMB Universe, which would convert a fraction of the gravitons in the SGWBs into photons of the same frequency via the inverse Gertsenshtein effect. The graviton-induced photons could then be a source of spectral distortions of the blackbody CMB.This, in turn, would allow us to constrain the GW amplitudes in the MHz-THz frequency regime. The high-frequency GWs (HFGWs) correspond to new physics in the early Universe such as beyond-Standard-Model mechanisms or sub-stellar mass primordial black holes. We place constraints on the HFGW energy densities by exploiting the existing direct observations of the radio sky, measurements of the 21-cm signal upper limits, the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich observations, and assuming that graviton-induced photons saturate all of the reported radio excess over the CMB. We also forecast the potential of SKA and proposed future CMB surveys as novel HFGW detectors, and show that they will significantly tighten the current constraints and bring us a step closer to detecting HFGWs.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm: Department of Astronomy, Stockholm University , 2024. , p. 119
Keywords [en]
Gravitational wave cosmology, modified gravity, magnetic field, cosmic microwave background
National Category
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Research subject
Astronomy
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-228068ISBN: 978-91-8014-763-7 (print)ISBN: 978-91-8014-764-4 (electronic)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-228068DiVA, id: diva2:1849882
Public defence
2024-06-04, sal FA32, AlbaNova universitetscentrum, Roslagstullsbacken 21 and online via Zoom, public link is available at the department website, Stockholm, 10:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2024-05-08 Created: 2024-04-09 Last updated: 2024-04-29Bibliographically approved
List of papers
1. Tensor spectrum of turbulence-sourced gravitational waves as a constraint on graviton mass
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Tensor spectrum of turbulence-sourced gravitational waves as a constraint on graviton mass
2021 (English)In: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, E-ISSN 1475-7516, no 7, article id 015Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

We consider a generic dispersive massive gravity theory and numerically study its resulting modified energy and strain spectra of tensor gravitational waves (GWs) sourced by (i) fully developed turbulence during the electroweak phase transition (EWPT) and (ii) forced hydromagnetic turbulence during the QCD phase transition (QCDPT). The GW spectra are then computed in both spatial and temporal Fourier domains. We find, from the spatial spectra, that the slope modifications are weakly dependent on the eddy size at QCDPT, and, from the temporal spectra, that the modifications are pronounced in the 1-10 nHz range the sensitivity range of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) for a graviton mass mg in the range 2 x 10(-23) eV ,less than or similar to m(g)c(2) less than or similar to 7 x 10(-22) eV.

Keywords
gravitational waves/theory, modified gravity, primordial gravitational waves (theory), primordial magnetic fields
National Category
Physical Sciences
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:su:diva-197778 (URN)10.1088/1475-7516/2021/07/015 (DOI)000683046300016 ()
Available from: 2021-10-18 Created: 2021-10-18 Last updated: 2024-04-09Bibliographically approved
2. Modified propagation of gravitational waves from the early radiation era
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Modified propagation of gravitational waves from the early radiation era
2023 (English)In: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, E-ISSN 1475-7516, Vol. 2023, no 6, article id 025Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

We study the propagation of cosmological gravitational wave (GW) backgrounds from the early radiation era until the present day in modified theories of gravity. Comparing to general relativity (GR), we study the effects that modified gravity parameters, such as the GW friction  αM and the tensor speed excess αT, have on the present-day GW spectrum. We use both the WKB estimate, which provides an analytical description but fails at superhorizon scales, and numerical simulations that allow us to go beyond the WKB approximation. We show that a constant αT makes relatively insignificant changes to the GR solution, especially taking into account the constraints on its value from GW observations by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration, while αM can introduce modifications to the spectral slopes of the GW energy spectrum in the low-frequency regime depending on the considered time evolution of αM. The latter effect is additional to the damping or growth occurring equally at all scales that can be predicted by the WKB approximation. In light of the recent observations by pulsar timing array (PTA) collaborations, and the potential observations by future detectors such as SKA, LISA, DECIGO, BBO, or ET, we show that, in most of the cases, constraints cannot be placed on the effects of αM and the initial GW energy density   Σ*GW separately, but only on the combined effects of the two, unless the signal is observed at different frequency ranges. In particular, we provide some constraints on the combined effects from the reported PTA observations.

Keywords
cosmological phase transitions, Gravitational waves in GR and beyond: theory, modified gravity, physics of the early universe
National Category
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:su:diva-228064 (URN)10.1088/1475-7516/2023/06/025 (DOI)001025474200006 ()2-s2.0-85163772543 (Scopus ID)
Available from: 2024-04-09 Created: 2024-04-09 Last updated: 2024-04-12Bibliographically approved
3. Inverse Gertsenshtein effect as a probe of high-frequency gravitational waves
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Inverse Gertsenshtein effect as a probe of high-frequency gravitational waves
Show others...
(English)In: Article in journal (Refereed) Accepted
National Category
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:su:diva-228065 (URN)
Available from: 2024-04-09 Created: 2024-04-09 Last updated: 2024-04-12

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