Higgsed Gauge-flation

We study a variant of Gauge-flation where the gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken by a Higgs sector. We work in the Stueckelberg limit and demonstrate that the dynamics remain (catastrophically) unstable for cases where the gauge field masses satisfy $\gamma < 2$, where $\gamma = g^2\psi^2/H^2$, $g$ is the gauge coupling, $\psi$ is the gauge field vacuum expectation value, and $H$ is the Hubble rate. We compute the spectrum of density fluctuations and gravitational waves, and show that the model can produce observationally viable spectra. The background gauge field texture violates parity, resulting in a chiral gravitational wave spectrum. This arises due to an exponential enhancement of one polarization of the spin-2 fluctuation of the gauge field. Higgsed Gauge-flation can produce observable gravitational waves at inflationary energy scales well below the GUT scale.Comment: 52 pages, 14 figure

Fast Computation of First-Order Feature-Bispectrum Corrections

Features in the inflaton potential that are traversed in much less than an e-fold of the expansion can produce observably large non-Gaussianity. In these models first order corrections to the curvature mode function evolution induce effects at second order in the slow roll parameters that are generically greater than ~ 10% and can reach order unity for order unity power spectrum features. From a complete first order expression in generalized slow-roll, we devise a computationally efficient method that is as simple to evaluate as the leading order one and implements consistency relations in a controlled fashion. This expression matches direct numerical computation for step potential models of the dominant bispectrum configurations to better than 1% when features are small and 10% when features are order unity

Money Matters - The Experience of English Friends in Stavanger, 1885-1900

The economic depression in Norway in the mid- 1880s led to the virtual bankruptcy of two of the key members of the Stavanger Meeting at a time when there was also a crisis of leadership following the death of Endre Dahl for so long the leader of the Quaker group there. A small group of English Friends led by Walter Morris (later, Morice) made an appeal for funds so as to be able to make commercial loans and thus ease the situation for Carl Nyman and Peter Fugilie who had by now made arrangements with their creditors. But just as Endre Dahl\u27s will took a long time to settle, so also did the repayment of these loans. There are certainly cultural misunderstandings and difficulties in legal yrocedures involved, but there is also the rising suspicion o deliberate deception. During the same period, Norwegian Friends had begun to question Peter Fugilie\u27s management (or mismanagement) of the Meeting\u27s financial affairs and Thorstein Bryne emerged to challenge ·and then to replace him as leader. It took the death of Carl Nyman and independent action on the part of the creditors of Peter Fugilie to achieve the eventual return of the loans plus interest. These events and experiences gave rise to a much more circumspect attitude on the part of English Friends. By the end of the century, by accident or design, they had begun to distance themselves from Norwegian Quakers and American Friends had begun to \u27fill the gap\u27, so to speak