Letter: Gravitational Waves in the Generalized Chaplygin Gas Model

The consequences of taking the generalized Chaplygin gas as the dark energy constituent of the Universe on the gravitational waves are studied and the spectrum obtained from this model, for the flat case, is analyzed. Besides its importance for the study of the primordial Universe, the gravitational waves represent an additional perspective (besides the CMB temperature and polarization anisotropies) to evaluate the consistence of the different dark energy models and establish better constraints to their parameters. The analysis presented here takes this fact into consideration to open one more perspective of verification of the generalized Chaplygin gas model applicability. Nine particular cases are compared: one where no dark energy is present; two that simulate the -CDM model; two where the gas acts like the traditional Chaplygin gas; and four where the dark energy is the generalized Chaplygin gas. The different spectra permit to distinguish the -CDM and the Chaplygin gas scenarios.