Primordial polymer perturbations

Abstract

We study the generation of primordial fluctuations in pure de Sitter inflation where the quantum scalar field dynamics are governed by polymer (not Schrodinger) quantization. This quantization scheme is related to, but distinct from, the structures employed in Loop Quantum Gravity; and it modifies standard results above a polymer energy scale $M_{\star }$. We recover the scale invariant Harrison Zel'dovich spectrum for modes that have wavelengths bigger than $M_{\star }^{-1}$ at the start of inflation. The primordial spectrum for modes with initial wavelengths smaller than $M_{\star }^{-1}$ exhibits oscillations superimposed on the standard result. The amplitude of these oscillations is proportional to the ratio of the inflationary Hubble parameter $H$ to the polymer energy scale. For reasonable choices of $M_{\star }$, we find that polymer effects are likely unobservable in CMB angular power spectra due to cosmic variance uncertainty, but future probes of baryon acoustic oscillations may be able to directly constrain the ratio $H/M_{\star }$.

Additional comments about polymer momentum operator (see footnote 4). Version to appear in JCAP. 18 pages, 10 figures

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Cited by in corpus (19)

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• Minisuperspace models as infrared contributions
• Emergent Universe Model from Modified Heisenberg Algebra
• Separable Hilbert space for loop quantization
• Absence of Unruh effect in polymer quantization
• Semiclassical and quantum behavior of the Mixmaster model in the polymer approach for the isotropic Misner variable
• Polymer inflation
• Semiclassical and Quantum Polymer Effects in the Flat Isotropic Universe
• Tunneling in Polymer Quantization and the Quantum Zeno Effect
• Low energy Lorentz violation from high energy modified dispersion in inertial and circular motion
• Diffraction in Time of Polymer Particles
• Bounds on the Polymer Scale from Gamma Ray Bursts
• Natural Inflation from Polymer Quantization
• Semiclassical cosmology with polymer matter
• Frustration of resonant preheating by exotic kinetic terms
• Primordial fluctuations from deformed quantum algebras