English

Inflation without an Inflaton II: observational predictions

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2025-11-18 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We present a complete computation of the scalar power spectrum in the \emph{inflation without inflaton} (IWI) framework, where the inflationary expansion is driven solely by a de~Sitter (dS) background and scalar fluctuations arise as second-order effects sourced by tensor perturbations. By explicitly deriving and numerically integrating the full second-order kernel of the Einstein equations, we obtain a scale-invariant scalar spectrum without invoking a fundamental scalar field. In this framework, the amplitude of the scalar fluctuations is directly linked to the scale of inflation. More precisely, we show that matching the observed level of scalar fluctuations, Δϕ2(k)109\Delta_{\phi}^2(k_\ast)\approx 10^{-9} at Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) scales, fixes the inflationary energy scale HinfH_{\rm inf} as a function of the number of observed e-folds NobsN_{\rm obs}. For Nobs3060N_{\rm obs}\simeq 30 - 60, we find Hinf5×1013GeV2×1010GeVH_{\rm inf} \simeq 5\times 10^{13}\,\mathrm{GeV} - 2\times 10^{10}\,\mathrm{GeV}, corresponding to a tensor-to-scalar ratio r0.015×109r \simeq 0.01 - 5\times 10^{-9}. In particular, requiring consistency with instantaneous reheating, we predict a number of e-folds of order~O(50)\mathcal{O}(50) and an inflationary scale Hinf1011GeVH_{\rm inf} \simeq 10^{11}\,\mathrm{GeV}. We also incorporate in our framework the quantum break-time of the dS state and show that it imposes an upper bound on the number of particle species. Specifically, using laboratory constraints on the number of species limits the duration of inflation to Nobs126N_{\rm obs}\lesssim 126 e-folds. These results establish the IWI scenario as a predictive and falsifiable alternative to standard inflaton-driven models, linking the observed amplitude of primordial fluctuations directly to the quantum nature and finite lifetime of dS space.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.11808,
  title  = {Inflation without an Inflaton II: observational predictions},
  author = {Marisol Traforetti and Mariam Abdelaziz and Daniele Bertacca and Raul Jimenez and Sabino Matarrese and Angelo Ricciardone},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.11808},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T07:38:19.483Z