Constructing Infrared Finite Propagators in Inflating Space-time
High Energy Physics - Theory
2014-11-20 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract
The usual (Bunch-Davies) Feynman propagator of a massless field is not well defined in an expanding universe due to the presence of infrared divergences. We propose a new propagator which yields infrared finite answers to any correlation function. The key point is that in a de Sitter spacetime there is an ambiguity in the zero-mode of the propagator. This ambiguity can be used to cancel the apparent divergences which arise in some loop calculations in eternally (or semi-eternally) inflating spacetime. We refer to this process as zero-mode modification. The residual ambiguity is fixed by observational measurement. We also discuss the application of this method to calculations involving the graviton propagator.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1002.4214,
title = {Constructing Infrared Finite Propagators in Inflating Space-time},
author = {Jason Kumar and Louis Leblond and Arvind Rajaraman},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1002.4214},
year = {2014}
}
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7 pages