Gravitational wave production during reheating: From the inflaton to primordial black holes

We calculate the gravitational waves (GWs) produced by primordial black holes (PBHs) in the presence of the inflaton condensate in the early Universe. Combining the GW production from the evaporation process, the gravitational scattering of the inflaton itself, and the density fluctuations due to the inhomogeneous distribution of PBHs, we propose for the first time a complete coherent analysis of the spectrum, revealing three peaks, one for each source. Three frequency ranges (<a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><a:mo>∼</a:mo><a:mi>kHz</a:mi></a:math>, GHz, and PHz, respectively) are expected, each giving rise to a similar GW peak amplitude <c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><c:msub><c:mi mathvariant="normal">Ω</c:mi><c:mi>GW</c:mi></c:msub></c:math>. We also compare our predictions with current and future GWs detection experiments.