Scalar two-point functions at the late-time boundary of de Sitter
Abstract
We calculate two-point functions of scalar fields of mass and their conjugate momenta at the late-time boundary of de Sitter with Bunch-Davies boundary conditions, in general spacetime dimensions. We perform the calculation using the wavefunction picture and using canonical quantization. With the latter one clearly sees how the late-time field and conjugate momentum operators are linear combinations of the normalized late-time operators and that correspond to unitary irreducible representations of the de Sitter group with well-defined inner products. The two-point functions resulting from these two different methods are equal and we find that both the autocorrelations of and and their cross correlations contribute to the late-time field and conjugate momentum two-point functions. This happens both for light scalars (), corresponding to complementary series representations, and heavy scalars (), corresponding to principal series representations of the de Sitter group, where is the Hubble scale of de Sitter. In the special case , only the autocorrelation contributes to the conjugate momentum two-point function in any dimensions and we gather hints that suggest to correspond to discrete series representations for this case at .
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2110.01635,
title = {Scalar two-point functions at the late-time boundary of de Sitter},
author = {Gizem Sengor and Constantinos Skordis},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2110.01635},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
The discussions on the massless scalar have been extended to include exceptional and discrete series invariant subspaces and inner products. An appendix with bulk calculations and confirmation that employing the late-time limit at the end or from the beginning leads to the same results have been included. This extended version is the version that will be submitted to a journal