Inflation: Theory and Observations
Abstract
Cosmic inflation provides a window to the highest energy densities accessible in nature, far beyond those achievable in any realistic terrestrial experiment. Theoretical insights into the inflationary era and its observational probes may therefore shed unique light on the physical laws underlying our universe. This white paper describes our current theoretical understanding of the inflationary era, with a focus on the statistical properties of primordial fluctuations. In particular, we survey observational targets for three important signatures of inflation: primordial gravitational waves, primordial non-Gaussianity and primordial features. With the requisite advancements in analysis techniques, the tremendous increase in the raw sensitivities of upcoming and planned surveys will translate to leaps in our understanding of the inflationary paradigm and could open new frontiers for cosmology and particle physics. The combination of future theoretical and observational developments therefore offer the potential for a dramatic discovery about the nature of cosmic acceleration in the very early universe and physics on the smallest scales.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2203.08128,
title = {Inflation: Theory and Observations},
author = {Ana Achúcarro and Matteo Biagetti and Matteo Braglia and Giovanni Cabass and Robert Caldwell and Emanuele Castorina and Xingang Chen and William Coulton and Raphael Flauger and Jacopo Fumagalli and Mikhail M. Ivanov and Hayden Lee and Azadeh Maleknejad and P. Daniel Meerburg and Azadeh Moradinezhad Dizgah and Gonzalo A. Palma and Guilherme L. Pimentel and Sébastien Renaux-Petel and Benjamin Wallisch and Benjamin D. Wandelt and Lukas T. Witkowski and W. L. Kimmy Wu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.08128},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
Contribution to Snowmass 2021; 103 pages, 8 figures, 378 endorsers; v2: minor changes