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Stochastic gravitational wave from graviton bremsstrahlung in inflaton decay into massive spin 3/2 particles

Diganta Das, Mihika Sanghi, and Sourav

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 063511 – Published 4 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/jr9j-x2bf

Abstract

The detection of primordial gravitational waves would offer a direct evidence of inflation and valuable insights into the dynamics of the early Universe. During postinflation reheating period, when the inflaton coherently oscillates at the bottom of its potential, primordial stochastic gravitational waves may be sourced by its perturbative decay into particles of different spins. Assuming the behavior of the potential near the minimum as a polynomial V(ϕ)∼ϕk, where k≥2, and treating the inflaton as coherently oscillating classical field, we calculate the decay of inflaton into a pair of spin 3/2 particles accompanied by graviton emission. We numerically study the reheating dynamics and calculate the stochastic gravitational wave spectra. Our analysis shows that the gravitational wave spectra can offer insights into the microscopic physics during inflation.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 063511– Published 4 March, 2026
  • Received 5 November 2025
  • Accepted 9 February 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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