Non-Gaussianity as a Particle Detector
High Energy Physics - Theory
2016-12-23 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract
We study the imprints of massive particles with spin on cosmological correlators. Using the framework of the effective field theory of inflation, we classify the couplings of these particles to the Goldstone boson of broken time translations and the graviton. We show that it is possible to generate observable non-Gaussianity within the regime of validity of the effective theory, as long as the masses of the particles are close to the Hubble scale and their interactions break the approximate conformal symmetry of the inflationary background. We derive explicit shape functions for the scalar and tensor bispectra that can serve as templates for future observational searches.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1607.03735,
title = {Non-Gaussianity as a Particle Detector},
author = {Hayden Lee and Daniel Baumann and Guilherme L. Pimentel},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1607.03735},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
55 pages, 10 figures