We consider the evolution of the gravitational wave spectrum for super-Hubble modes in interaction with a relativistic fluid, which is regarded as an effective description of fluctuations in a light scalar minimally coupled field, during the earliest epoch of the radiation dominated era after the end of inflation. We obtain the initial conditions for gravitons and fluid from quantum fluctuations at the end of inflation, and assume instantaneous reheating. We model the fluid by using relativistic causal hydrodynamics. There are two dimensionful parameters, the relaxation time τ and temperature. In particular we study the interaction between gravitational waves and the non trivial tensor (spin 2) part of the fluid energy-momentum tensor. Our main result is that the new dimensionful parameter τ introduces a new relevant scale which distinguishes two kinds of super-Hubble modes. For modes with H −1 < λ < τ the fluid-graviton interaction increases the amplitude of the primordial gravitational wave spectrum at the electroweak transition by a factor of about 1.3 with respect to the usual scale invariant spectrum.

In the Second Order Theories (SOT) of real relativistic fluids, the non-ideal properties of the flows are described by a new set of dynamical tensor variables. In this work we explore the non-linear dynamics of those variables in a conformal fluid. Among all possible SOTs, we choose to work with the Divergence Type Theories (DTT) formalism, which ensures that the second law of thermodynamics is fulfilled non-perturbatively. The tensor modes include two divergence-free modes which have no analog in theories based on covariant generalizations of the Navier-Stokes equation, and that are particularly relevant because they couple linearly to a gravitational field. To study the dynamics of this irreducible tensor sector, we observe that in causal theories such as DTTs, thermal fluctuations induce a stochastic stirring force, which excites the tensor modes while preserving energy momentum conservation. From fluctuation-dissipation considerations it follows that the random force is Gaussian with a white spectrum. The irreducible tensor modes in turn excite vector modes, which back-react on the tensor sector, thus producing a consistent non-linear, second order description of the divergence-free tensor dynamics. Using the Martin-Siggia-Rose (MSR) formalism plus the Two-Particle Irreducible Effective Action (2PIEA) formalism, we obtain the one-loop corrected equations for the relevant two-point correlation functions of the model: the retarded propagator and the Hadamard function. The overall result of the self-consistent dynamics of the irreducible tensor modes at this order is a depletion of the spectrum in the UV sector, which suggests that tensor modes could sustain an inverse entropy cascade.

We present a model of (double) kinetic theory which paves the way to describe matter in a Double Field Theory background. Generalized diffeomorphisms acting on double phase space tensors are introduced. The generalized covariant derivative is replaced by a generalized Liouville operator as it happens in relativistic kinetic theory. The section condition is consistently extended and the closure of the generalized transformations is still given by the C-bracket. In this context we propose a generalized Boltzmann equation and compute the moments of the latter, obtaining an expression for the generalized energymomentum tensor and its conservation law.