Dark energy from primordial inflationary quantum fluctuations

Abstract

We show that current cosmic acceleration can be explained by an almost massless scalar field experiencing quantum fluctuations during primordial inflation. Provided its mass does not exceed the Hubble parameter today, this field has been frozen during the cosmological ages to start dominating the universe only recently. By using supernovae data, completed with baryonic acoustic oscillations from galaxy surveys and cosmic microwave background anisotropies, we infer the energy scale of primordial inflation to be around a few TeV, which implies a negligible tensor-to-scalar ratio of the primordial fluctuations. Moreover, our model suggests that inflation lasted for an extremely long period. Dark energy could therefore be a natural consequence of cosmic inflation close to the electroweak energy scale.

5 pages, 2 figures, uses RevTeX. Physical discussion extended, misprints corrected, references added. Matches published version

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• Baryon Acoustic Oscillations in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 Galaxy Sample
• Cosmological Constraints from the SDSS Luminous Red Galaxies
• First CMB Constraints on the Inflationary Reheating Temperature
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