English

Ermakov-Lewis invariant in single field inflation

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-07-17 v1

Abstract

We investigate the dynamical symmetry of the Sasaki-Mukhanov equation, which governs the evolution of primordial perturbations during inflation. By mapping the Sasaki-Mukhanov equation to a constant-frequency harmonic oscillator via an auxiliary Ermakov field satisfying the Ermakov-Pinney equation, we construct the associated sl(2,R)sl(2, R) generators and derive the Ermakov-Lewis invariant. We apply this framework to de Sitter space and slow-roll inflation, demonstrating that the Bunch-Davies vacuum gives IEL=1/2I_{EL} = 1/2, conserved non-perturbatively at all orders in slow-roll.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.15630,
  title  = {Ermakov-Lewis invariant in single field inflation},
  author = {Seoktae Koh},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.15630},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

13+1 pages; to be published in JKPS