English

Platonic solids back in the sky: Icosahedral inflation

High Energy Physics - Theory 2016-04-13 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We generalize the model of solid inflation to an anisotropic cosmic solid. Barring fine tunings, the observed isotropy of the cosmological background and of the scalar two-point function isolate the icosahedral group as the only possible symmetry group of such a solid. In such a case, higher-point correlation functions---starting with the three-point one---are naturally maximally anisotropic, which makes the standard detection strategies highly inefficient and calls for a dedicated analysis of CMB data. The tensor two-point function can also be highly anisotropic, but only in the presence of sizable higher-derivative couplings.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1509.02942,
  title  = {Platonic solids back in the sky: Icosahedral inflation},
  author = {Jonghee Kang and Alberto Nicolis},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.02942},
  year   = {2016}
}

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20 pages