Quote:
Originally Posted by sjastro
Energy on its own won't contribute to gravitational waves. Energy converted to mass or vice versa will.
And here lies the problem......
If such an event occurred in the Inflation era we would not be able to measure it as gravitational waves do not exceed the speed of light.
The event is beyond the observable (measurement horizon) of the Universe and will remain so due to the acceleration of space time.
Looking for gravitational waves in the CMB is taking us back to the recombination era about 300,000 years after the end of the inflation era.
Perhaps the article is confusing the CMB as being a product of inflation.
Steven
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Energy would probably act like mass if the density of the energy were high enough, as it would've been in the very early Universe. Ordinarily it wouldn't. The conditions would've had to have been very extreme in order for it to do so. The problem, though, is as you stated it. However if what they're saying is correct then there must be some mechanism by which we can measure it, despite of inflation. What that is, I don't know.
If there was the influence on the CMB by gravitational waves generated during inflation, then you could expect to see the influence in the smoothness of the CMB. Those gravitational waves would still be present. You'd expect to find minute temp' differences in the CMB as the gravitational waves influence the motions of photons and the density of the Universe at any particular point. But then you still have the thorny question of the rapidity of inflation...makes for a bit of a conundrum!!!.