Identifying the inflaton with primordial gravitational waves

Abstract

We explore the ability of experimental physics to uncover the underlying structure of the gravitational Lagrangian describing inflation. While the observable degeneracy of the inflationary parameter space is large, future measurements of observables beyond the adiabatic and tensor two-point functions, such as non-Gaussianity or isocurvature modes, might reduce this degeneracy. We show that even in the absence of such observables, the range of possible inflaton potentials can be reduced with a precision measurement of the tensor spectral index, as might be possible with a direct detection of primordial gravitational waves.

5 pages, 2 figures, version to appear in PRL

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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Features and New Physical Scales in Primordial Observables: Theory and Observation
• Curing inflationary degeneracies using reheating predictions and relic gravitational waves
• Warm Intermediate Inflation in $F(T)$ Gravity
• On the Unlikeliness of Multi-Field Inflation: Bounded Random Potentials and our Vacuum
• Constraints on scalar and tensor perturbations in phenomenological and two-field inflation models: Bayesian evidences for primordial isocurvature and tensor modes
• Higher Order Corrections to the Primordial Gravitational Wave Spectrum and its Impact on Parameter Estimates for Inflation
• The Degeneracy Problem in Non-Canonical Inflation
• What Planck does not tell us about inflation
• Eternal Universes
• Horizon-preserving dualities and perturbations in non-canonical scalar field cosmologies
• A Brachistochrone Approach to Reconstruct the Inflaton Potential