A Meandering Inflaton
High Energy Physics - Theory
2010-01-21 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract
If the cosmological inflationary scenario took place in the cosmic landscape in string theory, the inflaton, the scalar mode responsible for inflation, would have meandered in a complicated multi-dimensional potential. We show that this meandering property naturally leads to many e-folds of inflation, a necessary condition for a successful inflationary scenario. This behavior also leads to fluctuations in the primordial power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation, which may be detected in a near future cosmic variance limited experiment like PLANCK.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0910.0849,
title = {A Meandering Inflaton},
author = {S. -H. Henry Tye and Jiajun Xu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0910.0849},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
minor additions, matched to published version