Curvature perturbations from vacuum transition during inflation

Abstract

We demonstrate that in the presence of a light scalar spectator field, vacuum transitions taking place during inflation can produce large, potentially detectable non-Gaussian signatures in the primordial curvature perturbation. Such transitions are common in theories with multiple scalar fields when the potential has several minima. Our computation proceeds by numerically finding the instanton solution that describes quantum tunnelling between vacuum states in a de Sitter background, calculating its dependence on the spectator field and, thereby, its effect on the expansion of space. For a scenario with Higgs inflation, we obtain the non-Gaussianity parameter $f_{\mathrm{NL}}\sim O(10)$ and study its parameter dependence.

23 pages, 4 figures; matches published version

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