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Discovering Relic Gravitational Waves in Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

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General Relativity and John Archibald Wheeler

Part of the book series: Astrophysics and Space Science Library ((ASSL,volume 367))

Abstract

The authority of J.A. Wheeler in many areas of gravitational physics is immense, and there is a connection with the study of relic gravitational waves as well. I begin with a brief description of Wheeler’s influence on this study. One part of the paper is essentially a detailed justification of the very existence of relic gravitational waves, account of their properties related to the quantum-mechanical origin, derivation of the expected magnitude of their effects, and reasoning why they should be detectable in the relatively near future. This line of argument includes the comparison of relic gravitational waves with density perturbations of quantum-mechanical origin, and the severe criticism of methods and predictions of inflationary theory. Another part of the paper is devoted to active searches for relic gravitational waves in cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). Here, the emphasis is on the temperature-polarization TE cross-correlation function of CMB. The expected numerical level of the correlation, its sign, statistics, and the most appropriate interval of angular scales are identified. Other correlation functions are also considered. The overall conclusion is such that the observational discovery of relic gravitational waves looks like the matter of a few coming years, rather than a few decades.

Based on the invited lecture at the 1-st J. A. Wheeler School on Astrophysical Relativity, June 2006, Italy.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    All inflationary quotations in the present article are taken from real publications. However, I do not see much sense in giving precise references. I am confronting here something like a culture, distributed over hundreds of publications, rather than a persistent confusion of a few authors. This situation was once qualified [26] as “the controversy between Grishchuk and the rest of the community”.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to D. Baskaran and A.G. Polnarev for collaboration on the joint paper [17] that was extensively quoted in this presentation, and to S. Weinberg for helpful comments on this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, Cardiff, CF243AA, UK

    Leonid P. Grishchuk

  2. Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow State University, Moscow, 119899, Russia

    Leonid P. Grishchuk

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  1. Leonid P. Grishchuk
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Correspondence to Leonid P. Grishchuk .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dipto. Ingegneria dell’Innovazione, Università del Salento, Via per Monteroni, Lecce, 73100, Italy

    Ignazio Ciufolini

  2. Dept. Physics, Center for Relativity, University of Texas, Austin, Austin, 78712-1081, USA

    Richard A. Matzner

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Grishchuk, L.P. (2010). Discovering Relic Gravitational Waves in Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. In: Ciufolini, I., Matzner, R. (eds) General Relativity and John Archibald Wheeler. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 367. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3735-0_10

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