相关论文: Does Planck Actually "See" the Bunch-Davies State?
The simplest single-field inflation models capture all the relevant contributions to the patterns in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) observed today. A key assumption in these models is that the quantum inflationary fluctuations that…
I explore whether distinguishing features of phase transitions and/or the inflationary energy scale can be imprinted on cosmological observables due to entanglement during inflation, given a spectator scalar field with a Higgs-like…
Given the latest observational constraints coming from the joint analyses of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, the Planck Satellite and other missions, we point out the possibility of reconciling fundamental particle-physics models of…
We revisit spectator field models including curvaton and modulated reheating scenarios, specifically focusing on their viability in the new Planck era, based on the derived expression for the spectral index in general spectator field…
The scale invariant scalar and tensor perturbations, which are predicted from inflation, are eigenmodes in the conformal coordinates. The 'out' observer in the de Sitter space observes a thermal spectrum with a Gibbons-Hawking temperature…
The BICEP2 collaboration has for the first time observed the B-mode polarization associated with inflationary gravitational waves. Their result has some discomfiting implications for the validity of an effective theory approach to…
We show how the choice of an inflationary state that entangles scalar and tensor fluctuations affects the angular two-point correlation functions of the $T$, $E$, and $B$ modes of the cosmic microwave background. The propagators for a state…
We investigate the potential of observations of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and large-scale structure in the Universe to detect possible modifications of standard inflationary models by physics beyond the Planck…
In this work we explore the possibility of variations in the primordial scalar power spectrum around the power-law shape, as predicted by single-field slow-roll inflationary scenarios. We search for the trace of these fluctuations in a…
The observational status of inflation after the Planck 2013 and 2015 results and the BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck joint analysis is discussed. These pedagogical lecture notes are intended to serve as a technical guide filling the gap…
We compute the bi-spectrum of CMB temperature fluctuations for a state where the metric perturbation $\zeta$ is entangled with a spectator scalar field $\chi$. Novel terms in the cubic $\zeta$ action coupled to the scalar can be the…
We consider observational limits on a proposed model of the string landscape in inflation. In this scenario, effects from the decoherence of entangled quantum states in long-wavelength modes in the universe result in modifications to the…
In order to calculate the power spectrum generated during a stage of inflation, we have to specify the quantum state of the inflaton perturbations, which is conventionally assumed to be the Bunch-Davies vacuum. We argue that this choice is…
The Bunch-Davies state appears precisely thermal to a free-falling observer in de Sitter space. However, precise thermality is unphysical because it violates energy conservation. Instead, the true spectrum must take a certain different…
We consider the effects of entanglement in the initial quantum state of scalar and tensor fluctuations during inflation. We allow the gauge-invariant scalar and tensor fluctuations to be entangled in the initial state and compute…
Measurement of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature by Planck has resulted in extremely tight constraints on the $\Lambda$CDM model. However the data indicates a evidence of dipole modulated temperature fluctuations at large…
Entangled inflationary quantum states offer an interesting alternative to the standard Bunch-Davies vacuum. While they can be viewed from the point of view of a theory of effective initial states, it has been unclear exactly how such states…
We present the implications for cosmic inflation of the Planck measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies in both temperature and polarization based on the full Planck survey. The Planck full mission temperature data…
BICEP2 result on the tensor to scalar ratio $r$ indicates a blue tilt in the primordial gravitational wave spectrum. This blue tilt and the observed large value $r = 0.2$ are difficult to accommodate within the single field inflationary…
If the universe had a large curvature before inflation there is a deviation from the scale invariant perturbations of the inflaton at the beginning of inflation. This may have some effect on the CMB anisotropy at large angular scales. We…