Quantum coherence of cosmological perturbations

Abstract

The degrees of quantum coherence of cosmological perturbations of different spins are computed in the large-scale limit and compared with the standard results holding for a single mode of the electromagnetic field in an optical cavity. The degree second-order coherence of curvature inhomogeneities (and, more generally, of the scalar modes of the geometry) reproduces faithfully the optical limit. For the vector and tensor fluctuations the numerical values of the normalized degrees of second-order coherence in the zero-time delay limit are always larger than unity (which is the Poisson benchmark value) but differ from the corresponding expressions obtainable in the framework of the single-mode approximation. General lessons are drawn on the quantum coherence of large-scale cosmological fluctuations.

arXiv comment10 pages, minor corrected typos; to appear in Mod.Phys. Lett. A

References in corpus (3)

• First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Determination of Cosmological Parameters
• Seven-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Galactic Foreground Emission
• Backgrounds of squeezed relic photons and their spatial correlations

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