Generating enhanced primordial GWs during inflation with intermittent violation of NEC and diminishment of GW propagating speed

Abstract

Abstract We investigate both the null energy condition (NEC) violating scenario and the cT-diminishing scenario for generating enhanced power spectrum of primordial gravitational waves (GWs) during inflation, where cT is the propagating speed of primordial GWs. Both of these two scenarios can be realized stably with theories beyond Horndeski, hence can be uniformly implemented within the framework of the effective field theory. We calculate the power spectrum of primordial GWs by assuming that the inflationary Universe undergoes three phases, where the violation of NEC or the diminishment of cT occurs in the intermediate phase. A template of the spectrum is given for the NEC-violating scenario. We also discuss the underlying relation and discrepancy between these two scenarios with a disformal transformation.