Ultra-high Frequency Gravitational Waves from Scattering, Bremsstrahlung and Decay during Reheating

Abstract: We investigate ultra-high frequency gravitational waves (GWs) from gravitons generated during inflationary reheating. Specifically, we study inflaton scattering with its decay product, where the couplings involved in this $2 \to 2$ scattering are the same as those in the $1 \to 3$ graviton Bremsstrahlung process. We compute the graviton production rate via such $2 \to 2$ scattering. Additionally, we compare the resulting GW spectrum with that from Bremsstrahlung as well as that from pure $2 \to 2$ inflaton scatterings. For completeness, the GW spectrum from graviton pair production through one-loop induced $1 \to 2$ inflaton decay is also analyzed. With a systematic comparison among the four sources of GWs, we find that $2 \to 2$ inflaton scattering with its decay product can dominate over Bremsstrahlung if the reheating temperature is larger than the inflaton mass. Pure inflaton $2 \to 2$ scattering is typically subdominant compared to Bremsstrahlung except in the high-frequency tail. The contribution from one-loop induced $1 \to 2$ inflaton decay is shown to be suppressed compared to Bremsstrahlung and pure inflaton $2 \to 2$ scattering.