Revealing the Cosmic History with Gravitational Waves
Carlos Tamarit (JGU Mainz)

The characteristics of the cosmic microwave background provide circumstantial evidence that the hot radiation-dominated epoch in the early universe was preceded by a period of inflationary expansion. Here, it will be shown how a measurement of the stochastic gravitational wave background can reveal the cosmic history and the physical conditions during inflation, subsequent pre- and reheating, and the beginning of the hot big bang era. This will be exemplified with a particularly well-motivated and predictive minimal extension of the Standard Model which is known to provide a complete model for particle physics -- up to the Planck scale, and for cosmology -- back to inflation.