# The Gravitational-wave contribution to the CMB Anisotropies

## 1  Introduction

Inflationary theory has had a large impact on cosmology. On the one hand, it resolves some difficulties of the standard Big-Bang model. On the other, it provides a way of producing those density fluctuations that in the gravitational instability scenario are the seed of the large scale structure of the universe. In fact, one of the most reliable predictions of the inflationary paradigm is the parallel production of scalar and tensor perturbations from quantum fluctuations of the inflaton field $`\widehat{\varphi }`$ (Starobinsky  (1979); Rubakov et.al.  (1982); Starobinsky  (1982); Abbot & Wise  (1984)). The amplitude of tensor fluctuations determines the value of the inflationary potential and, together with other inflationary parameters, its first two derivatives (see e.g. Turner  (1997)). Thus, a detection of a nearly scale-invariant stochastic gravitational wave (GW) background (tensor modes) is crucial in order to confirm any inflationary model and constrain the physics occurring near the Planck scale, at $`10^{16}GeV`$.

Observations of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy promise to be unique in this respect (Starobinsky  (1985); Crittenden et.al.  (1993); Turner et.al.  (1993)). Recent numerical simulations (Zaldarriaga et.al.  (1997); Dodelson et.al.  (1997); Bond  (1997)) have shown that inflationary parameters will be measured with an accuracy of few percent by the MAP (Bennett et.al.  (1995)) and Planck (Bersanelli et.al.  (1996)) space missions, which will image the CMB anisotropy pattern with high sensitivity and at high angular resolution.

Meanwhile, the number of experiments reporting detections of anisotropy has increased to a couple of ten (see Table 1, below). At the moment, the detections available seem compatible with the predictions of inflationary models, like Cold Dark Matter (CDM), with ”blue” power spectra, i.e. $`P(k)=Ak^{n_S}`$ with $`n_S\stackrel{>}{}1`$ (de Bernardis et.al.  (1997); Bennett et.al.  (1996); Bond & Jaffe  (1996)). As noticed by many authors, there is a substantial rise in the anisotropy angular power spectrum at $`\mathrm{}200`$, which appears to be consistent with the expected location of the first Doppler peak in flat models. This small scale behaviour seems to disfavor a GW contribution. In fact, as is well known, tensor fluctuations induce anisotropy only on large angular scales ($`\mathrm{}\stackrel{<}{}30`$). If there is a sizable contribution from GW in large scale detected anisotropies, this would lower the predicted value of $`(\mathrm{\Delta }T/T)_{rms}`$ on smaller scales.

Moreover, inflationary models that predict $`n_S\stackrel{>}{}1`$ generally predict vanishingly small tensor fluctuations (Kolb & Vadas  (1994)).

Based on these arguments, a lot of recent CMB data analysis (Lineweaver et.al.  (1997); Hancock et.al.  (1997)) has not taken into account the possible presence of a GW background, assuming its contribution to be negligible.

In our opinion, there are two points that can alter these conclusions:

\- Tensor modes are compatible with the theory of linear adiabatic perturbations of a homogeneous and isotropic universe. Like scalar perturbations and in contrast with vector perturbations, they can arise from small deviations from the isotropic Friedmann universe near the initial singularity. So, CMB data should be analyzed without any a priori assumptions: the presence or absence of a tensor component in models with $`n_S1`$ can be only tested by observation.

\- Few variations in the still undetermined cosmological parameters (like the baryonic abundance or the Hubble constant) and inflationary parameters (like the spectral index $`n_S`$) can counterbalance the effect of tensor modes, increasing the predicted value of $`(\mathrm{\Delta }T/T)_{rms}`$ on small scales.

Thus, in this paper, we will discuss what kind of constraint present CMB anisotropy data provide on the tensor contribution allowing all the remaining parameters to vary freely in their acceptable ranges. We will extend our previous CMB data analysis (de Bernardis et.al.  (1997)), by including new CMB detections, and by analyzing a larger set of models. We restrict ourselves to critical universes ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_{matter}=1`$), as a recent analysis of CMB anisotropies and galaxy surveys (Gawiser & Silk  (1998)) has shown that pure scalar Mixed Dark Matter (MDM) models are in good agreement with the data set. We will address the importance of a cosmological constant, reported by Riess et.al.  (1998) and Perlmutter et.al.  (1998), in a forthcoming paper.

Since we treat the GW contribution as a free parameter, we will not test any specific inflationary model. So, our approach will be mainly phenomenological: we assume that GW are created in the early universe by some process during or immediately after inflation, which we do not want to specify any further here. Nonetheless, as the amplitude of the GW spectrum provides a test for inflation (see next section), in our conclusions we will discuss if results are compatible with this paradigm.

Since any possible GW signal will affect the matter power spectrum normalization inferred from COBE, we will test the models that best fit the CMB data with the normalization $`\sigma _8`$ of the matter fluctuation in $`8h^1`$ spheres and with the shape of the spectrum from the Peacock & Dodds  (1994) analysis.

The plan of the paper is as follows. In Sect.2 we write the set of equations necessary to describe the inflationary process in the slow roll approximation. In Sect.3 we briefly discuss the analysis of the current degree-scale CMB experiments. In Sect.4 we test the best fit models with the Large-Scale Structure (LSS) data. Finally, in Sect. 5 we present and discuss our conclusions.

## 2 Early Universe

Inflation in the early universe is determined by the potential $`V(\widehat{\varphi })`$, where $`\widehat{\varphi }`$ can be a multiplet of scalar fields. Here we restrict ourselves to the case of a single, minimally coupled scalar field $`\varphi `$ with potential $`V`$ and equation of motion

$$\ddot{\varphi }+3H\dot{\varphi }+V^{}=0,$$
(1)   
(as usual, the dot and prime indicate derivatives with respect to physical time $`t`$ and to the scalar field $`\varphi `$, respectively). The expansion rate in the early universe can be written as:

$$H^2=\frac{8\pi }{3m_{Pl}^2}\left[\frac{1}{2}\dot{\varphi }^2+V(\varphi )\right]$$
(2)   
where $`m_{pl}=1.210^{19}GeV`$ is the Planck mass (we use natural units, i.e. $`h=c=k=1`$).

The slow-roll approximation holds in most of the inflationary models. This condition is valid if (Copeland et.al.  (1993); Hodges & Blumenthal  (1990))

$$\frac{m_{pl}^2}{4\pi }\left[\frac{H^{\prime \prime }}{H}\right]=\eta (\varphi )<<1$$
(3)   
and

$$\frac{m_{pl}^2}{4\pi }|\frac{H^{}}{H}|^2=ϵ(\varphi )<<1$$
(4)   
The second condition, since $`ϵ`$ is a direct measure of the equation of state of the scalar field matter, also implies the period of accelerated expansion (Dodelson et.al.  (1997)).

In the slow roll approximation the amplitude of scalar and tensor perturbations are related to the inflationary potential as follows (Copeland et.al.  (1993)):

$$A_S(\varphi )=\sqrt{\frac{2}{\pi }}\frac{1}{m_{pl}^2}\frac{H^2}{|H^{}|}$$
(5)   
and

$$A_T(\varphi )=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}\pi }\frac{H}{m_{pl}}$$
(6)   
We can relate the wavelength, $`\lambda `$, and the Hubble parameter during inflation, $`H(\varphi )`$, with the scalar field by writing:

$$\frac{d\mathrm{ln}\lambda }{d\varphi }=\frac{\sqrt{4\pi }}{m_{pl}}\frac{A_S}{A_T}$$
(7)   
and

$$\frac{\mathrm{ln}H}{\varphi }=\frac{\sqrt{4\pi }}{m_{pl}}\frac{A_T}{A_S},$$
(8)   
respectively.

Let us define the spectral equations for scalar and tensor components as follows:

$$A_S^2(k)=A^2(\frac{k}{k_0})^{n_S1}$$
(9)   
and

$$A_T^2(k)=B^2(\frac{k}{k_0})^{n_T}$$
(10)   
where $`k_0=H_0`$ is the wavenumber of a fluctuation which re-enters the horizon at the present time, and $`A`$ and $`B`$ are constants. It is easy to see that $`n_T=2ϵ(k)`$ if $`\lambda =\lambda _0`$, and $`n_T=0`$ if $`\lambda 0`$ (Lidsey et.al.  (1997)).

We define the ratio of amplitudes of the scalar and tensor modes by:

$$r=\sqrt{ϵ(k_0)}=\frac{B}{A}$$
(11)   
By solving Eq.(7) and assuming $`n_T0`$, the scalar field can be written as a function of the wavelength:

$$\varphi (\lambda )=\varphi _0+\varphi _1\left[(\frac{\lambda }{\lambda _0})^{\frac{n_S1}{2}}1\right]$$
(12)   
where $`\varphi _0`$ is a constant, to be found from boundary conditions, and $`\varphi _1=\frac{r}{n_S1}\frac{m_{pl}}{\sqrt{\pi }}`$.

Furthermore, Eq.s (12) and (8) allow us to find the Hubble parameter $`H(\varphi )`$ during inflation:

$$H(\varphi )=H_i\mathrm{exp}(\frac{r^2}{n_S1}\xi ^2)$$
(13)   
where $`\xi =\frac{\varphi +\varphi _1\varphi _0}{\varphi _1}`$ and $`H_i`$ is a constant.

The potential can be written in terms of the Hubble parameter:

$$V(\varphi )=\frac{3m_{pl}^2}{8\pi }H^2(\varphi )$$
(14)   
At this point, we can define the relation between the quadrupole multipoles of the CMB anisotropy generated by scalar and tensor perturbations: $`C_2^S`$ and $`C_2^T`$, respectively. To do this we will follow the calculations done by (Souradeep & Sahni  (1992)) in which both $`C_2^S`$ and $`C_2^T`$ were found as a function of $`H(\varphi )`$ at $`\lambda =H_0^1`$. So we have:

$`C_2^S={\displaystyle \frac{2\pi ^2}{25}}f(n_S){\displaystyle \frac{1}{m_{pl}^4}}{\displaystyle \frac{H^4}{(H^{})^2}}`$ (15)   
$`C_2^T={\displaystyle \frac{2.9}{5\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{H^2}{m_{pl}^2}}`$ (16)   
and

$$\frac{C_2^T}{C_2^S}=\frac{29}{4\pi ^3}\frac{m_{pl}^2}{f(n_S)}\frac{(H^{})^2}{H^2}$$
(17)   
where

$$f(n_S)=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(3n_S)\mathrm{\Gamma }({\displaystyle \frac{3+n_S}{2}})}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2({\displaystyle \frac{4n_S}{2}})\mathrm{\Gamma }({\displaystyle \frac{9n_S}{2}})}$$
(18)   
Using Eq.(13) we can write:

$$\frac{\mathrm{ln}H(\varphi )}{\varphi }=\frac{2\sqrt{\pi }}{m_{pl}}r\xi $$
(19)   
Therefore, at $`\varphi =\varphi _0`$ (i.e. $`\xi =1`$), we have:

$$R(n_S)\frac{C_2^T}{C_2^S}=\frac{29r^2}{\pi ^2f(n_S)}$$
(20)   
As we can see from the equation above, the tensor to scalar quadrupole ratio $`R`$ is related to the slow-roll parameter $`ϵ`$. Eq. (20) identifies a region in the ($`n_S`$,$`R`$) space of values where the slow-roll condition is satisfied. Furthermore, as $`ϵ<1`$ only if the universe has undergone a period of accelerated expansion, one can use this equation to test the inflationary scenario.

In the same way, we can use Eq.(19) in Eq.(3) in order to find:

$$2\eta =n_s1+2r^2$$
(21)   
so the slow roll condition (4) implies Eq. (3) if $`n_s1`$.

Using Eq.(14), we can now write the potential as

$$V(\varphi _0)=\frac{15}{23.2}C_2^Tm_{pl}^4$$
(22)   
Therefore, the measurement of the contribution to the quadrupole anisotropy of tensor fluctuation, $`C_2^T`$, allows us to estimate the size of the potential responsible for inflation.

## 3  CMB Anisotropy

### 3.1 Method

We use a set of the most recent CMB anisotropy detections, both on large and degree angular scales, in order to estimate the amplitude of tensor fluctuations. The likelihood of the assumed independent CMB anisotropy data is (see de Bernardis et.al.  (1997)):

$``$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(2\pi [(\mathrm{\Sigma }_{j}^{}{}_{}{}^{(the)})^2+(\mathrm{\Sigma }_j^{(exp)})^2])^{1/2}}}`$ (23)   
$`\times `$ $`exp({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{[\mathrm{\Delta }_{j}^{}{}_{}{}^{(exp)}\mathrm{\Delta }_j^{(the)}]^2}{(\mathrm{\Sigma }_j^{(the)})^2+(\mathrm{\Sigma }_j^{(exp)})^2}})`$   
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_j^{exp}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_j^{the}`$ are the experimentally detected and theoretically expected mean square anisotropy, respectively. The $`(\mathrm{\Sigma }_j^{(the)})^2`$ and $`(\mathrm{\Sigma }_j^{(the)})^2`$ are the respective cosmic and experimental variances. Obviously, the likelihood depends on the parameters of the cosmological model. Although a complete analysis should cover all the parameter space, here we restrict ourselves to flat models ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=1`$) composed of baryons ($`0.01\stackrel{<}{}\mathrm{\Omega }_b\stackrel{<}{}0.14`$), cold dark matter ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_{CDM}\stackrel{>}{}0.7`$), hot dark matter ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu \stackrel{<}{}0.3`$), photons and massless neutrinos. As shown in (de Bernardis et.al.  (1997); Ma & Bertschinger  (1995); Dodelson et.al.  (1996)) the angular power spectrum of MDM models differs from pure CDM by less than $`10\%`$ in the angular scales of interest. Given the poor sensitivity of the available CMB anisotropy detections at degree angular scales, we restrict ourselves to pure CDM models, keeping in mind that basically the same power spectrum is also expected for MDM models. The predictions of CDM and MDM models for the matter power spectrum obviously differ, and in a substantial way: we will discuss this point in more detail below.

Here we keep as free parameters $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ and $`h`$. Both parameters affect the positions and amplitudes of the so-called Doppler peaks of the angular power spectrum. In fact, changing $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ at fixed $`h`$ changes the pressure of the baryon-photon fluid before recombination, increasing its oscillations below its Jeans length. A larger baryon to photon ratio will increase the compressions (which produce the even peaks in $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ for inflationary models) and decrease the rarefaction (odd peaks for inflationary models). Lowering $`h`$ at fixed $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ changes the epoch of matter-radiation equality: potentials inside the horizon decay in a radiation dominated era but not in a fully matter dominated one. The combination $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2`$, which actually appears in the calculations, is also constrained by primordial nucleosynthesis arguments (Copi et.al.  (1995)): $`0.01\stackrel{<}{}\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2\stackrel{<}{}0.026`$. Moreover, from globular cluster ages, $`0.4\stackrel{<}{}h\stackrel{<}{}0.65`$ (Kolb & Turner  (1991)).

We will also explore variations in the spectral index of the (scalar) primordial power spectrum $`n_S`$. We restrict ourselves to values of $`n_S\stackrel{<}{}1.5`$, to be consistent with the absence of spectral distortions in the COBE/FIRAS data (Hu et.al.  (1994)). A parameter independent normalization for the power spectrum can be expressed in terms of the amplitude of the multipole $`C_{10}`$. We define the parameter $`𝒜A/A_{COBE}`$ as the amplitude $`𝒜`$ of the power spectrum (considered as a free parameter) in units of $`A_{COBE}`$, the amplitude needed to reproduce $`C_{10}47.6\mu K^2`$, as observed on the COBE-DMR four-year maps (Bunn  (1997)).

Finally, for tensor fluctuations, we will assume $`n_T=0`$. In fact, variations in the tensor spectral index in the range $`1\stackrel{<}{}n_T\stackrel{<}{}0`$ do not give appreciable changes in the structure of the $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$’s, given the cosmic variance and the current experimental sensitivity. We parameterize the amplitude of these tensor fluctuations with $`R`$, defined in Eq. (22). So, in the end, we will consider only five quantities as free parameters: $`𝒜`$, $`n_S`$, $`R`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ and $`h`$.

We have computed the angular power spectrum of CMB anisotropy by solving the Boltzmann equation for fluctuations in CMB brightness (Peebles & Yu  (1970); Hu et.al.  (1995)). Our code is described in (de Bernardis et.al.  (1997); Melchiorri & Vittorio  (1996)) and allows the study of CMB anisotropy both in cold (CDM) and mixed (MDM) dark matter models. Our $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$’s match to better than $`0.5\%`$ for $`\mathrm{}1500`$ compared with those of other codes (Seljak & Zaldarriaga  (1996); Ma & Bertschinger  (1995)). In Fig. 1 we show the $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$’s for different parameter choices.

The data we consider are listed in Table 1 and shown in Fig. 1. We have updated the data presented in our previous paper (de Bernardis et.al.  (1997)) to include the new results from the Tenerife, MSAM and CAT experiments. For the COBE data, we use the $`8`$ data points from Tegmark & Hamilton  (1997), that have the advantage of uncorrelated error bars.

### 3.2  Results

The best fit parameters (i.e. those which maximize the likelihood) are (with $`95\%`$ confidence): $`n_S=1.23_{0.15}^{+0.17}`$, $`R=2.4_{2.2}^{+3.4}`$, with $`𝒜=0.92`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b=0.07`$ and $`h=0.46`$. We can only put the following upper limits (at $`68\%`$) on these last two best fit values: $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b<0.11`$, $`h<0.58`$.

A probability confidence level contour in the five dimension volume of parameters is obtained by cutting the $``$ distribution with the isosurface $`_P`$, and by requiring that the volume inside $`_P`$ is a a fraction $`P`$ of the total volume. The projections of the $`_{68}`$ and $`_{95}`$ surfaces on the $`n_SR`$ plane are shown in Fig. 2.

As we can see from Fig. 2, the Likelihood contours are very broad and models with spectral index $`n_S1`$ and $`R=0`$ are statistically indistinguishable from models with $`n_S1.4`$ and $`R4`$.

The quite large values of $`R`$ for $`n_S\stackrel{>}{}1`$ are due to a parameter degeneracy problem that present CMB anisotropy detections are not able to solve (see Fig. 1). In fact, increasing the contribution of tensor modes boosts the anisotropy on large scales ($`>>2^{}\mathrm{\Omega }_0^{1/2}`$). As the theoretical predictions are normalized to COBE/DMR, adding tensor fluctuations while keeping all the other parameters fixed, actually suppresses the level of degree scale anisotropy. To counterbalance this effect, it is necessary to postulate ”blue” primordial spectra, i.e. $`n_s\stackrel{>}{}1`$. The shape of the confidence level region in the $`n_sR`$ plane reflects this correlation. This degeneracy in the model prediction is actually broken at a higher angular resolution, $`\mathrm{}\stackrel{>}{}300`$ say, where present experiments are particularly affected by cosmic variance, due to the very small region of the sky sampled (see Table 1). We have the following $`95\%`$ C.L. upper limits on $`R`$: $`0.3`$, $`1.3`$, $`2.5`$, $`4.5`$, $`7.8`$ and $`12.5`$ for $`n_s=0.8`$, $`0.9`$, $`1.0`$, $`1.1`$, $`1.2`$ and $`1.3`$, respectively. At $`n_s=1.4`$ and $`1.5`$ we can put $`95\%`$ C.L. lower limits of $`1.0`$ and $`2.8`$ on $`R`$. A quadratic fit to the maxima distribution gives:

$$R=34.370.8n_S+36.5n_S^2$$
(24)   
for $`1.1n_S1.5`$. With the above equation, we find that the tensor component can have an rms amplitude value of $`28\mu k`$ for $`n_s=1.1`$ and $`49\mu k`$ for $`n_s=1.5`$, while the scalar component remains at $`100\mu k`$.

It is interesting to see (Fig.1) that models with $`n_S1.4`$ and $`R3`$, which are well compatible with our analysis, seem to prefer a greater Hubble constant, $`h0.6`$. So, the gravitational wave contribution also seem to moderate the discrepancy between the value $`h0.7`$ (Freedman  (1996)), inferred by several different methods, and the value $`h0.4`$ (Lineweaver et.al.  (1997)) inferred by scalar-only CMB analysis.

We found that inside the $`95\%`$ contour, the overall normalization amplitude, in units of $`A_{COBE}`$ is $`𝒜=1\pm 0.2`$, i.e. all the models considered therein correspond well with COBE/DMR normalization.

The simple analysis carried out here does not take into account the correlation due to overlapping sky coverage (e.g., Tenerife and COBE, and/or MSAM and Saskatoon). We check the stability of our analysis with a jacknife test, i.e. removing one set of experimental data each time. We have a maximum variation of $`34\%`$ in our limits in the $`n_SR`$ plane, except with the removal of COBE data that modifies our results by $`10\%`$. So, neglecting this correlation does not significantly change the results of our analysis. We also repeated the analysis including the possible $`\pm 14\%`$ calibration error to the five Saskatoon points (Netterfield et.al.  (1997)), and we did not find significant variations. In the limited cases where comparison is possible, our analysis produced results similar to those of Bond & Jaffe  (1996), Lineweaver et.al.  (1997) and Hancock et.al.  (1997).

## 4  Comparison with LSS

As we have seen, blue models with a substantial tensor component agree well with CMB data. Tensor modes have dramatic effects on the matter power spectrum, reducing its normalization by a factor of $`(1+R)^1`$. Using the above fit formula, the tensor contribution to the CMB correlation function on the COBE/DMR scales can be between $`54\%`$ for $`n_s=1.1`$ and $`91\%`$ for $`n_s=1.5`$. In this section we want to test these models with large scale matter distribution. As is well known, CDM blue models predict a universe that is too inhomogeneous on scales $`10h^1Mpc`$. Nonetheless, the excess power on these scales can be reduced by considering a mixture of cold and hot dark matter, i.e. mixed dark matter (MDM) models. The difference in the $`C_l`$ behaviour between a pure CDM and an MDM ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_\nu 0.3`$) model is very tiny, $`2\%`$ up to $`l300`$ and $`8\%`$ up to $`l800`$ (see, for example De Gasperis et.al.  (1995)). Therefore, the results of our CMB analysis are the same in this kind of model. In Figure 3, MDM matter power spectra from models that agree with CMB data are shown. The data points are an estimate of the linear power spectrum from Peacock & Dodds  (1994), assuming a CDM flat universe and bias values between Abell, radio, optical, and IRAS catalogs $`b_A:b_R:b_O:b_I=4.5:1.9:1.3:1.0`$ with $`b_I=1.0`$. As shown in (Smith et.al.  (1997)) recovered linear power spectra of CDM and MDM models are nearly the same in the region $`0.01k0.15hMpc^1`$ but diverge from this spectrum at higher $`k`$, so we restrict ourselves to this range. The $`\chi ^2`$ (with $`11`$ degrees of freedom) are $`15`$, $`10`$, $`21`$, $`9`$, $`37`$, $`53`$ for models in Figure 3 with $`(1.4,3.3)`$, $`(1.3,3.9)`$, $`(1.2,1.3)`$, $`(1.1,0.6)`$,$`(1.0,0.1)`$ and $`(0.9,0)`$ in the $`(n_s,R)`$ space. So, models with a large tensor contribution on COBE scales and blue spectral index seem to agree well also with the shape of matter distribution on large scale. The values for the $`\sigma _8`$, computed with CMBFAST (Seljak & Zaldarriaga  (1995)), are $`0.69`$, $`0.61`$, $`0.66`$, $`0.63`$, $`0.63`$, $`0.74`$, in very reasonable agreement with the value of $`\sigma _8^{IRAS}=0.69\pm 0.05`$ (Fisher et.al.  (1994)) derived from the IRAS catalog.

Whether IRAS galaxies are biased is still under debate. Analysis from cluster data (Eke et.al.  (1996), Pen  (1998), Bryan and Norman  (1998)), shows a preferred value of $`\sigma _80.50.6`$ with few percent error bars. Analysis from peculiar velocities (Zehavi  (1998)) results in a larger value $`\sigma _8=0.85\pm 0.2`$, which seems to be in severe conflict with the cluster data. Thus, the theoretical values of $`\sigma _8`$ for blue MDM models with a relic gravitational wave background are between the $`\sigma _8`$ values derived from cluster abundance and peculiar velocities. In any case, the likelihood of the CMB data is quite flat around its maximum. So, it is easy to find models, statistically indistinguishable from the best fit models, with $`\sigma _8`$ nearer either to $`0.5`$ or to $`0.8`$.

Because of statistical and/or systematic uncertainties we do not consider it appropriate to put more than qualitative conclusions on these results, but still one can say that the lower matter normalization due to the tensor component helps the blue MDM models to match the LSS data.

## 5  Conclusions

Our main conclusions, are as follows:

1. The conditional Likelihood shows a maximum at $`n_S=1.23_{0.15}^{+0.17}`$, $`R=2.4_{2.2}^{+3.4}`$, with $`𝒜=0.92`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b=0.07`$ and $`h=0.46`$. Thus, there is some evidence that a tensor component can be present, and in a substantial way, in models with $`n_s`$ greater than one. Inflationary models of this type have been investigated by Copeland et.al.  (1993) and by Lukash & Mikheeva  (1996) and thus belong to the class of hybrid inflationary models (Kinney, Dodelson & Kolb  (1998)). The general form of the potential can be written as $`V(\varphi )=V_0+\frac{1}{2}\mu ^2\varphi ^2`$ At the end of inflation, the inflationary potential $`V(\varphi )`$ is not equal to zero, being $`V_0`$ of the order of $`(610^{16}Gev)^4`$. In order to be consistent with the present vacuum energy $`(10^{30}Gev)^4`$, one additional field is necessary to finish inflation. The inclusion of this field does not change the conclusion of our analysis, since it affects only the high frequency region of the GW spectrum ($`100MHz`$). For models on the best fit curve (Eq.24), $`V(\varphi _0)`$ belongs to the interval $`4.310^{11}m_{pl}^4<V_0<1.310^{10}m_{pl}^4`$. In Fig.2 we plot Eq.(24) with the condition $`ϵ=1`$. The region below this curve in the $`n_SR`$ plane is where the slow roll approximation is valid. As we can see, models on our best fit curve satisfy this condition, even if models with $`ϵ1`$ are compatible with observations.

Approaching the limiting region $`ϵ=1`$, higher order terms in the slow roll approximation became valuable. This leads to changes in our conclusions on the potential by a factor $`1ϵ/330\%`$ (Kinney, Dodelson & Kolb  (1998)).

2. The $`95\%`$ region on the $`n_SR`$ plane includes a wide range of parameters. This means that the presently available data set is not sensitive enough to produce precise determinations for $`n_S`$ and $`R`$. Systematic and statistical errors in the different experiments are still significant, but, as we have shown, the difficulties involved in such determinations are mainly due to a degeneracy in these parameters. So, the $`(n_S,R)`$ degeneracy has important consequences for tests of the inflationary theory: increasing the scalar spectral index and the tensor component lead to a break in the slow roll approximation, but it also produces CMB power spectra near to the scale invariant one. Therefore it is difficult from the present CMB data to see if the slow roll condition is correct.

Furthermore, current CMB results on the normalization of the matter power spectrum and/or its spectral index can be biassed and/or anti-biassed by a huge tensor contribution. As we can see from Fig.1, this degeneration also has effects on the constraints of the remaining cosmological parameters, being a model with $`h0.6`$ statistically indistinguishable from a model with $`h0.4`$.

The inflationary background of primordial gravitational waves is assumed detectable mainly through CMB experiments. The local energy density of this background is, in the most optimistic situation, extremely low, with $`d\mathrm{\Omega }_{GW}h^2/dlogk10^{16}`$ at frequencies $`10^{15}Hz<f<10^{15}Hz`$. The tenuity of this signal makes the degeneracy in the $`n_S`$ and $`R`$ parameters much more worrying than similar degeneracy in other parameters (e.g. $`h`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$) that could be constrained through other measurements.

3. ”Blue” MDM models with a tensor contribution, are in reasonable agreement with the present values of $`\sigma _8`$, and with the shape of the matter power spectrum inferred by the Peacock & Dodds  (1994) analysis. A tensor contribution could also be a viable mechanism in order to reconcile these models with a low value for the $`\sigma _8`$ around $`0.5`$ (Henry & Arnaud  (1991)).

This being the situation, a measure of the structure of the secondary peaks becomes a crucial test for the presence of tensor perturbations. Using the above best fit equation, we can make some predictions regarding future detections. We found that an experiment with a window function probing the multipoles $`500\mathrm{}680`$, will measure a total rms anisotropy of $`28.3\mu K`$ for $`n_s=1.1`$, and $`34.4\mu K`$, with $`n_S=1.5`$. An $`20\%`$ difference that could be proven, when the sensitivity of these experiments is within a few $`\mu k`$, with an improved sky coverage. Polarization measurements at intermediate angular scales can also be helpful (Sazhin  (1984), Polnarev  (1985), Sazhin & Benitez  (1995), Sazhin  (1996)). The possibility of a direct separation of scalar perturbations from tensor perturbations by the method of decomposition of Stocks parameters in sets of spin $`\pm 2`$ spherical harmonics seems extremely promising (Kamionkovsky & Kosowsky  (1996), Seljak & Zaldarriaga  (1996), Sazhin & Shulga  (1996)).

Possibly a definitive answer will come when future CMB experiment provides a clear and robust picture of sub-degree angular scale anisotropy and polarization.

We wish to thank Paolo de Bernardis, Ruth Durrer, Giancarlo De Gasperis, Martin Kunz and Andrew Yates. M.V.S. acknowledges the University of ”Tor Vergata” for hospitality during writing part of this paper. MVS acknowledge ”Cariplo Foundation” for Scientific Research and ”Landau-Network - Centro Volta” for financial support during the writing the last version of this paper.