Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Cosmological stasis can recur multiple times, and each occurrence imprints a characteristic feature on the inflationary gravitational wave background (IGWB). We extend the single-epoch spectral template to an arbitrary number $N$ of consecutive stasis epochs, deriving a closed-form $N$-epoch piecewise template that factorizes cleanly: the amplitude steps at each break are determined entirely by the local equation of state $w_s^{(i)}$ of that epoch, while the inter-epoch plateau levels encode the accumulated spectral tilt from all prior epochs. Each resolved spectral feature yields an independent test of the Bessel-function consistency relation $C^2 = C^2(α)$ established in~\cite{BarenboimBurns:paper1}, and the probability that $N$ such tests are simultaneously satisfied by a non-stasis spectrum falls sharply with $N$, making a confirmed multi-epoch comb the strongest available discriminator against constant-$w$ alternatives. We apply the formalism to the triple-stasis scenario of~\cite{Dienes:2023ziv}, which chains three pairwise stasis mechanisms (matter/radiation, vacuum-energy/matter, vacuum-energy/radiation) sequentially. For each block we derive the conditions under which the epoch lies within the template's validity range $w_s > -1/3$. We show that the Fig.~3 benchmark of~\cite{Dienes:2023ziv} falls outside this range and identify parameter choices that are both physically realizable and accessible to the template. We validate the inter-plateau ratio predictions numerically for representative two- and three-block chains, and work out the touching-epoch limit in which consecutive blocks share a break frequency without an intervening radiation-dominated interval. Finally, we discuss the detectability of a variety of multi-epoch stasis scenarios and give the minimum detectable tensor-to-scalar ratio as a function of the number of recurrent stasis epochs.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: G103507813, G1105844351, G1175115578, G1272900390, G1764267590, G1971932983, G2262748287, G2601397997, G2917513873, G300979063, Hunting Invisibles: Dark sectors, Dark matter and Neutrinos, G3098500317, G3480869486, G3681454997, G3780874795, G4042783231, G4087634877, G4212894969, G425668148, G4294200505, G464105488, G491712853, G5020660627, G5080475149, G5195188938, G5209569390, G5371910319, G5635532810, G633297219, G7052861868, G7084143925, G714608666, G776579233, G7805626310, G7863371703, G8235390948, G8497050386
OpenAlex ID: W7213610891