Cosmological evolution of scale-invariant gravity waves.

The evolution of scale-invariant gravity waves from the early universe is analyzed using an equation of state which smoothly interpolates between the radiation dominated era and the present matter dominated era. We find that for large wavenumbers the standard scale-invarant wavefunction for the gravity wave severely underestimates the actual size of the gravity wave. Moreover, there is a definite shift in the phase of the gravity wave as it crosses the radiation-matter phase transition. The tensor-induced anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background and the present spectral energy density of the gravity wave is then calculated using these results.