Related papers: Light Particles with Spin in Inflation
Tensor non-Gaussianity represents an important future probe of the physics of inflation. Inspired by recent works, we elaborate further on the possibility of significant primordial tensor non-Gaussianities sourced by extra fields during…
Cosmological perturbations of massive higher-spin fields are generated during inflation, but they decay on scales larger than the Hubble radius as a consequence of the Higuchi bound. By introducing suitable couplings to the inflaton field,…
We study the imprints of a massive spin-2 field on inflationary observables, and in particular on the breaking of consistency relations. In this setup, the minimal inflationary field content interacts with the massive spin-2 field through…
We point out that tensor consistency relations-i.e. the behavior of primordial correlation functions in the limit a tensor mode has a small momentum-are more universal than scalar consistency relations. They hold in the presence of multiple…
If the graviton is the only high spin particle present during inflation, then the form of the observable tensor three-point function is fixed by de Sitter symmetry at leading order in slow-roll, regardless of the theory, to be a linear…
The seed of dark matter can be generated from light spectator fields during inflation through a similar mechanism that the seed of observed large scale structures are produced from the inflaton field. The accumulated energy density of the…
We consider the possibility of extra spinning particles during inflation, focussing on the spin-2 case. Our analysis relies on the well-known fully non-linear formulation of interacting spin-2 theories. We explore the parameter space of the…
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…
In a variety of inflation models the motion of the inflaton may trigger the production of some non-inflaton particles during inflation, for example via parametric resonance or a phase transition. Particle production during inflation leads…
According to common lore, massive elementary higher spin particles lead to inconsistencies when coupled to gravity. However, this scenario was not completely ruled out by previous arguments. In this paper, we show that in a theory where the…
We investigate small-scale signatures of the inflationary particle content. We consider the case of a light spin-2 particle sourcing primordial gravitational waves by employing an effective field theory description. Upon allowing…
Large field inflation can be sensitive to perturbative and nonperturbative quantum corrections that spoil slow roll. A large number $N$ of light species in the theory, which occur in many string constructions, can amplify these problems.…
It is a longstanding desire of cosmologists, and particle physicists as well, to connect inflation to low energy physics, culminating, for instance, in what is known as Higgs inflation. The condition for the standard Higgs boson playing the…
The representation theory of de Sitter space allows for a category of partially massless particles which have no flat space analog, but could have existed during inflation. We study the couplings of these exotic particles to inflationary…
If there exist higher-spin particles during inflation which are light compared to the Hubble rate, they may leave distinct statistical anisotropic imprints on the correlators involving scalar and graviton fluctuations. We characterise such…
Primordial SU(2) gauge fields with an isotropic background lead to the production of spin-2 particles during inflation. We provide a unified formalism to compute this effect in all of the inflation models with isotropic SU(2) gauge fields…
We study the implications on inflation of an infinite tower of higher-spin states with masses falling exponentially at large field distances, as dictated by the Swampland Distance Conjecture. We show that the Higuchi lower bound on the mass…
We show that density perturbations seeded by the inflaton can be suppressed when having additional light degrees of freedom contributing to the production of perturbations. The inflaton fluctuations affect the light field dynamics by…
The presence of additional particles during inflation leads to non-Gaussianity in late-time correlators of primordial curvature perturbations. The shape and amplitude of this signal depend on the mass and spin of the extra particles.…
A field kinetic coupling with the Einstein tensor leads to a gravitationally enhanced friction during inflation, by which even steep potentials with theoretically natural model parameters can drive cosmic acceleration. In the presence of…