Related papers: Resolving the Inflationary Power Spectrum
Recently there have been differing viewpoints on how to evaluate the curvature power spectrum generated during inflation. Since the primordial curvature power spectrum is the seed for structure formation and provides a link between…
The spectrum of curvature perturbation generated during inflation is studied in the case the inflation-driving scalar field (inflaton) $\phi$ crosses over its potential extremum. It is shown that the nondecaying mode of perturbation has a…
In the inflationary cosmology it occurs frequently that the inflaton field is trapped in a local, transient minimum with non-zero vacuum energy. The difficulty regarding the curvature perturbation produced during such a stage is that…
A perturbative strategy for inflation described by two-inflaton fields is developed using a mathematical analogy with the renormalization-group. Two small quantities, $\alpha$ and $\lambda$, corresponding to standard slow-roll parameters…
It has been suggested that the effects of renormalization significantly reduce the amplitude of the inflationary spectra at scales measurable in the cosmic microwave background. Via a gauge-invariant analysis, we compute the renormalized…
We argue that in models of inflation with two scalar fields and non-canonical kinetic terms there is a possibility of obtaining a red tilt of the power spectrum of curvature perturbations from noncanonicality-induced interactions between…
The ability to reproduce the observed matter power spectrum $P(k)$ to high accuracy is often considered as a triumph of inflation. In this work, we explore an alternative explanation for the power spectrum based on nonperturbative quantum…
We study a simple extension of Linde's hybrid inflation model, with the inflaton mass term replaced by the most general renormalizable potential for $\phi$. The unprocessed power spectrum of density perturbations can have two minima and one…
We discuss the impact of adiabatic renormalization on the power spectrum of scalar and tensor perturbations from inflation. We show that adiabatic regularization is ambiguous as it leads to very different results, for different adiabatic…
Inflationary predictions based on the linear theory of cosmological perturbations are related to the two point function of a (second quantized) real scalar free field during the accelerated stage. Such a two point function is finite, in…
The inflaton field responsible for inflation may not be a canonical fundamental scalar. It is possible that the inflaton is a composite of fermions or it may have a decay width. In these cases the standard procedure for calculating the…
A simple realization of inflation consists of adding the following operators to the Einstein-Hilbert action: (partial phi)^2, lambda phi^4, and xi phi^2 R, with xi a large non-minimal coupling. Recently there has been much discussion as to…
We develop methods to calculate the curvature power spectrum in models where features in the inflaton potential nonlinearly excite modes and generate high frequency features in the spectrum. The first nontrivial effect of excitations…
Motivated by the fact that a sharply peaked curvature spectrum is often considered in the literature, we examine theoretical constraints on the sharpness of such a spectrum. In particular, we show that the sharply peaked curvature power…
We study non-linear contributions to the power spectrum of the curvature perturbation on super-horizon scales, produced during slow-roll inflation driven by a canonical single scalar field. We find that on large scales the linear power…
Power spectra always play an important role in the theory of inflation. In particular, the ability to reproduce the galaxy matter power spectrum and the CMB temperature angular power spectrum coefficients to high accuracy is often…
We consider the inflationary model in which the inflaton $\phi$ couples to another scalar field $\chi$ via the interaction $g^2(\phi-\phi_0)^2\chi^2$ with a small coupling constant $g$ ($g^2 \sim 10^{-7}$). We assume that there is a…
We describe models of single-field inflation with small and sharp step features in the potential (and sound speed) of the inflaton field, in the context of the Effective Field Theory of Inflation. This approach allows us to study the…
We analyze the consequences of different evolutions of the Hubble parameter on the spectrum of scalar inflationary perturbations. The analysis is restricted to inflationary phases described by a transient evolution, when uncommon features…
We investigate the stochastic dynamics of the long wavelength modes of a generic light scalar field that during inflation is coupled to another scalar field. The coupling plays an important role for the fluctuation of the field amplitude…