Lighting the dark ages of inflation: features in the stochastic gravitational wave background

Observational constraints on inflation have so far concentrated on the CMB and Large Scale Structure surveys. After a broad introduction, I will show how phenomena arising during unconstrained stages of inflation, and motivated by high energy embeddings, lead to characteristic oscillatory patterns in the stochastic gravitational wave background. Probing these features could, for instance, establish the existence of heavy particles beyond the reach of terrestrial experiments, and even test the inflationary paradigm or point to alternatives to it. This provides a clear target for gravitational wave observatories as well as a challenge for developing dedicated data analysis techniques to look for this unique insight into the physics of the early universe.

Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/91390797603?pwd=bWdEdUJNYkhZQWZQRFdsTjlSQXk0Zz09