What constitutes a gravitational wave in an expanding universe?
ABSTRACT
Our understanding of gravitational waves produced by isolated astrophysical systems is primarily based on gravitational perturbation theory off a flat spacetime background. This leads to the common identification of gravitational radiation with massless spin-2 waves. In this talk, I will argue that gravitational waves may no longer be solely "spin-2" in character once the background spacetime is our expanding universe instead. As a result of the mixing between gravitational and other degrees of freedom, scalar "spin-0" gravitational waves may exist during the radiation-dominated epoch of our universe; as well as during its current accelerated expansion phase -- provided the main driver is not the cosmological constant, but some extra "Dark Energy" field. Moreover, during the radiation-dominated era, spin-0 Cherenkov gravitational waves may even be generated if its material source were traveling faster than 1/\sqrt{3}.
