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