Limits on the gravity wave contribution to microwave anisotropies

We present limits on the fraction of large angle microwave anisotropies which could come from tensor perturbations. We use the COBE results as well as smaller scale CMB observations, measurements of galaxy correlations, abundances of galaxy clusters, and Lyman alpha absorption cloud statistics. Our aim is to provide accurate limits on the tensor-to-scalar ratio for standard inflationary models. For power-law inflation, for example, we find T/S<0.51 at 95% confidence, with a similar constraint for phi^p potentials. However, for models with tensor amplitude unrelated to the scalar spectral index it is still currently possible to have T/S>1.

cosmic background radiation: anisotropy
perturbation: tensor
perturbation: scalar
correlation: galaxy
galaxy: cluster
inflation
gravitational radiation
numerical calculations
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