The NANOGrav pulsar timing array experiment reported evidence for a stochastic common-spectrum process affecting pulsar timing residuals in its 12.5-yr data set, which might be interpreted as the first detection of a stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB). I examine whether the NANOGrav signal might be explained by an inflationary SGWB, focusing on the implications for the tensor spectral index nT and the tensor-to-scalar ratio r. Explaining NANOGrav while complying with upper limits on r from BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck requires r ≳ O(10-6) in conjunction with an extremely blue tensor spectrum, 0.7 ≲ nT ≲ 1.3. After discussing models, which can realize such a blue spectrum, I show that this region of parameter space can be brought in agreement with big bang nucleosynthesis constraints for a sufficiently low reheating scale, Trh ≲ 100 Gev-1 Tev. With the important caveat of having assumed a power-law parametrization for the primordial tensor spectrum, an inflationary interpretation of the NANOGrav signal is therefore not excluded.
Implications of the NANOGrav results for inflation / Vagnozzi, Sunny. - In: MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY. LETTERS. - ISSN 1745-3925. - 502:1(2021), pp. L11-L15. [10.1093/mnrasl/slaa203]
Implications of the NANOGrav results for inflation
Sunny Vagnozzi
2021-01-01
Abstract
The NANOGrav pulsar timing array experiment reported evidence for a stochastic common-spectrum process affecting pulsar timing residuals in its 12.5-yr data set, which might be interpreted as the first detection of a stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB). I examine whether the NANOGrav signal might be explained by an inflationary SGWB, focusing on the implications for the tensor spectral index nT and the tensor-to-scalar ratio r. Explaining NANOGrav while complying with upper limits on r from BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck requires r ≳ O(10-6) in conjunction with an extremely blue tensor spectrum, 0.7 ≲ nT ≲ 1.3. After discussing models, which can realize such a blue spectrum, I show that this region of parameter space can be brought in agreement with big bang nucleosynthesis constraints for a sufficiently low reheating scale, Trh ≲ 100 Gev-1 Tev. With the important caveat of having assumed a power-law parametrization for the primordial tensor spectrum, an inflationary interpretation of the NANOGrav signal is therefore not excluded.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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