CMB anisotropies caused by gravitational waves: A parameter study

Anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation due to gravity waves are investigated. An initial spectrum of gravity waves may have been induced during an epoch of inflation. We study the propagation of such a spectrum in different Friedmann backgrounds with hot and cold dark matter, radiation and, possibly, a cosmological constant. We calculate its imprint as anisotropies on the cosmic microwave background. We also take into account that massless particles can source gravity waves by their anisotropic stresses. We consider general mixed dark matter models with and without cosmological constant. For a given, scale invariant input spectrum of gravity waves, we determine the dependence of the resulting spectrum of CMB anisotropies on the different parameters of the model.