B modes from postinflationary gravitational waves sourced by axionic instabilities at cosmic reionization

Michael Geller, Sida Lu, Yuhsin Tsai

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

We show that axionlike particles that only couple to invisible dark photons can generate visible B mode signals around the reionization epoch. The axion field starts rolling shortly before reionization, resulting in a tachyonic instability for the dark photons. This generates an exponential growth of the dark photon quanta sourcing both scalar metric modes and gravitational waves that leave an imprint on the reionized baryons. The tensor modes modify the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization at reionization, generating visible B mode signatures for the next generation of CMB experiments for parameter ranges that satisfy the current experimental constraints.

Original languageEnglish
Article numberA22
JournalPhysical Review D
Volume104
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - 15 Oct 2021

Funding

FundersFunder number
Maryland Center for Fundamental Physics
US-Israeli BSF2018236
National Science FoundationPHY-1914731, PHY-2014165
German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and DevelopmentI-2524-303.7
Israel Science Foundation1302/19

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