Related papers: Minimal decoherence from inflation
We study the process whereby quantum cosmological perturbations become classical within inflationary cosmology. By setting up a master-equation formulation we show how quantum coherence for super-Hubble modes can be destroyed by their…
We re-examine the decoherence rate of primordial fluctuations within minimal inflationary models, using only the gravitational interactions required for the underlying fluctuation-generation mechanism itself. Since gravity provides the…
We identify the effective theory describing inflationary super-Hubble scales and show it to be a special case of effective field theories appropriate to open systems. Open systems allow information to be exchanged between the degrees of…
Slow-roll inflation can become eternal if the quantum variance of the inflaton field around its slowly rolling classical trajectory is converted into a distribution of classical spacetimes inflating at different rates, and if the variance…
We study the evironment-induced decoherence of cosmological perturbations in an inflationary background. Splitting our spectrum of perturbations into two distinct sets characterized by their wavelengths (super and sub-Hubble), we identify…
Primordial fluctuations in inflationary cosmology acquire classical properties through decoherence when their wavelengths become larger than the Hubble scale. Although decoherence is effective, it is not complete, so a significant part of…
The observational constraints on the primordial power spectrum have tightened considerably with the release of the first year analysis of the WMAP observations, especially when combined with the results from other CMB experiments and galaxy…
Since inflationary perturbations must generically couple to all degrees of freedom present in the early Universe, it is more realistic to view these fluctuations as an open quantum system interacting with an environment. Then, on very…
The fluctuations in the inflaton field at the end of inflation which seed the density perturbations are prepared in a pure quantum state. It is generally assumed that some physics causes this pure state to decohere so that it should be…
We study the decoherence of massive fields during inflation based on the Zurek's density matrix approach. With the cubic interaction between inflaton and massive fields, the reduced density matrix for the massive fields can be calculated in…
The decoherence of quantum fluctuations into classical perturbations during inflation is discussed. A simple quantum mechanical argument, using a spatial particle wavefunction rather than a field description, shows that observable…
I study a stochastic approach to the recently introduced fresh inflation model for super Hubble scales. I find that the state loses its coherence at the end of the fresh inflationary period as a consequence of the damping of the…
We compute the rate with which unobserved fields decohere other fields to which they couple, both in flat space and in de Sitter space, for spectator scalar fields prepared in their standard adiabatic vacuum. The process is very efficient…
We study the effect of quantum decoherence on the inflationary cosmological perturbations. This process might imprint specific observational signatures revealing the quantum nature of the inflationary mechanism being related to the…
Using the techniques of out-of-equilibrium field theory, we study the influence on the properties of cosmological perturbations generated during inflation on observable scales coming from fluctuations corresponding today to scales much…
We study the inflationary quantum-to-classical transition for the adiabatic curvature perturbation $\zeta$ due to quantum decoherence, focusing on the role played by squeezed-limit mode couplings. We evolve the quantum state $\Psi$ in the…
Decoupling of heavy modes in effective low energy theory is one of the most fundamental concepts in physics. It tells us that modes must have a negligible effect on the physics of gravitational backgrounds with curvature radius larger than…
In order to shed light on the quantum-to-classical transition of the primordial perturbations in single field inflation, we investigate the decoherence and associated quantum corrections to the correlation functions of superhorizon scalar…
The theory of inflation provides a mechanism to explain the structures we observe today in the Universe, starting from quantum-mechanically generated fluctuations. However, this leaves the question of: how did the quantum-to-classical…
We investigate to what extent future microwave background experiments might be able to detect a suppression of fluctuation power on large scales in flat and open universe models. Such suppression would arise if fluctuations are generated by…