Primordial Features as Evidence for Inflation

Abstract

In the primordial universe, fields with mass much larger than the mass-scale of the event-horizon (such as the Hubble parameter in inflation) exist ubiquitously, and can be excited from time to time and oscillate quickly around their minima. These excitations can induce specific patterns in density perturbations, which record the time dependence of the scale factor of the primordial universe, thus provide direct evidence for the inflation paradigm or its alternatives. Such effects are conventionally averaged out in theoretical and data analyses, but can be accessible for experiments targeting on density perturbations with high multipoles.

24 pages; v2, minor corrections, comments and references added

References in corpus (30)

• Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Interpretation
• Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Interpretation
• The Ekpyrotic Universe: Colliding Branes and the Origin of the Hot Big Bang
• Pre-Big-Bang in String Cosmology
• Adiabatic CMB perturbations in pre-big bang string cosmology
• Primordial Non-Gaussianities from Inflation Models
• Quasi-Single Field Inflation and Non-Gaussianities
• On the Generation of a Scale-Invariant Spectrum of Adiabatic Fluctuations in Cosmological Models with a Contracting Phase
• Features of heavy physics in the CMB power spectrum
• Duality Invariance of Cosmological Perturbation Spectra
• Inflationary perturbations from a potential with a step
• Large non-Gaussianities with Intermediate Shapes from Quasi-Single Field Inflation
• The shape of primordial non-Gaussianity and the CMB bispectrum
• Resonant Non-Gaussianity
• Designing Cyclic Universe Models
• The Cosmic Microwave Background Bispectrum and Inflation
• Tensor Modes from a Primordial Hagedorn Phase of String Cosmology
• General CMB and Primordial Bispectrum Estimation I: Mode Expansion, Map-Making and Measures of f_NL
• Scale dependence of local f_NL
• Folded Resonant Non-Gaussianity in General Single Field Inflation
• Non-Gaussianity in a Matter Bounce
• General CMB and Primordial Trispectrum Estimation
• Primordial non-Gaussianity and the CMB bispectrum
• Fast Computation of Bispectrum Features with Generalized Slow Roll
• Non-Gaussianity from violation of slow-roll in multiple inflation
• Adiabatic Ekpyrosis: Scale-Invariant Curvature Perturbations from a Single Scalar Field in a Contracting Universe
• Optimal Trispectrum Estimators and WMAP Constraints
• Towards a Cosmological Dual to Inflation
• On adiabatic perturbations in the ekpyrotic scenario
• Model-Independent Signatures of New Physics in Slow-Roll Inflation

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Inflation, Cosmic Perturbations and Non-Gaussianities
• Effective Field Theory and Decoupling in Multi-field Inflation: An Illustrative Case Study
• Standard Clock in Primordial Density Perturbations and Cosmic Microwave Background
• Fingerprints of Primordial Universe Paradigms as Features in Density Perturbations
• The Effective Field Theory of Inflation Models with Sharp Features
• The scalar bi-spectrum in the Starobinsky model: The equilateral case
• Correlating correlation functions of primordial perturbations
• Fluid Inflation
• A Direct Probe of the Evolutionary History of the Primordial Universe
• Time-dependent Features in the Primordial Spectrum
• The UV Sensitivity of Axion Monodromy Inflation
• Trail of the Higgs in the primordial spectrum
• Cross-tests of CMB features in the primordial spectra