A bstract Cosmological phase transitions in the primordial universe can produce anisotropic stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds (GWB), similar to the cosmic microwave background (CMB). For adiabatic perturbations, the fluctuations in GWB follow those in the CMB, but if primordial fluctuations carry an isocurvature component, this need no longer be true. It is shown that in non-minimal inflationary and reheating settings, primordial isocurvature can survive in GWB and exhibit significant non-Gaussianity (NG) in contrast to the CMB, while obeying current observational bounds. While probing such NG GWB is at best a marginal possibility at LISA, there is much greater scope at future proposed detectors such as DECIGO and BBO. It is even possible that the first observations of inflation-era NG could be made with gravitational wave detectors as opposed to the CMB or Large-Scale Structure surveys.
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Effects of mirror birefringence and its fluctuations to laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors
Crystalline materials are promising candidates as substrates or high-reflective coatings of mirrors to reduce thermal noises in future laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors. However, birefringence of such materials could degrade the sensitivity of gravitational wave detectors, not only because it can introduce optical losses, but also because its fluctuations create extra phase noise in the arm cavity reflected beam. In this paper, we analytically estimate the effects of birefringence and its fluctuations in the mirror substrate and coating for gravitational wave detectors.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1912677
- PAR ID:
- 10505747
- Publisher / Repository:
- Physical Review D
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review D
- Volume:
- 109
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2470-0010
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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