Inflation, quantum fields, and CMB anisotropies

Abstract

Inflationary cosmology has proved to be the most successful at predicting the properties of the anisotropies observed in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In this essay we show that quantum field renormalization significantly influences the generation of primordial perturbations and hence the expected measurable imprint of cosmological inflation on the CMB. However, the new predictions remain in agreement with observation, and in fact favor the simplest forms of inflation. In the near future, observations of the influence of gravitational waves from the early universe on the CMB will test our new predictions.

11 pages, 1 figure, Awarded with the fourth prize in the Gravity Research Foundation 2009 Essay Competition

References in corpus (1)

• Pointer states for primordial fluctuations in inflationary cosmology

Cited by in corpus (13)

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• Vacuum and Gravitons of Relic Gravitational Waves, and Regularization of Spectrum and Energy-Momentum Tensor
• On the power spectrum generated during inflation
• Remarks on the renormalization of primordial cosmological perturbations
• Running couplings from adiabatic regularization
• A semi-analytical approach to perturbations in mutated hilltop inflation
• Enhanced local-type inflationary trispectrum from a non-vacuum initial state
• Adiabatic regularization of power spectrum in nonminimally coupled general single-field inflation
• Confronting quasi-exponential inflation with WMAP seven
• Inflation, Renormalization, and CMB Anisotropies