Continuous Spectrum on Cosmological Collider

We study the effects of a massive field with a continuous spectrum (continuum isocurvaton) on the inflationary bispectrum in the squeezed limit. As a concrete example, we extend the quasi-single field inflation model to include a continuum isocurvaton with a well-motivated spectral density from extra dimensions and focus on a contribution to the bispectrum with a single continuum isocurvaton exchange. In contrast to the usual case without the continuous spectrum, the amplitude of the bispectrum has a damping feature in the deep squeezed limit, which can be strong evidence for the continuous spectrum.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures; v2: references added, to be published in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physic

Full diffeomorphism and Lorentz invariance in 4D N=1{\cal N}=1 superfield description of 6D SUGRA

We complete the four-dimensional ${\cal N}=1$ superfield description of six-dimensional supergravity. The missing ingredients in the previous works are the superfields that contain the sechsbein $e_4^{\;\;\underline{\nu}}$, $e_5^{\;\;\underline{\nu}}$, $e_\mu^{\;\;\underline{4}}$, $e_\mu^{\;\;\underline{5}}$ and the second gravitino. They are necessary to make the action invariant under the diffeomorphisms and the Lorentz transformations involving the extra dimensions. We find the corresponding superfield transformation laws, and show the invariance of the action under them. We also check that the resultant action reproduces the known superfield description of five-dimensional supergravity through the dimensional reduction.Comment: 45 pages, some comments adde

Illustrating SUSY breaking effects on various inflation mechanisms

We consider the supersymmetry breaking effects on typical inflation models with different types of K\"ahler potential. The critical size of supersymmetry-breaking scale, above which the flatness of the inflaton potential is spoiled, drastically changes model by model. We present the universal description of such effects in terms of a field-dependent scaling factor by which gravity-mediated supersymmetry breaking terms are suppressed or enhanced, based on the conformal supergravity framework. Such a description would be useful when we estimate them in constructing supersymmetric models of particle cosmology.Comment: 20pages, 3 figures, v2: a reference added, v3: Appendix B adde

On the Weyl gravity extension of Higgs inflation

We consider the embedding of Higgs inflation with a non-minimal coupling into the Weyl gravity. In this model, the effective current-current interactions from the heavy Weyl gauge field cancel the non-canonical Higgs kinetic term in Einstein frame, so the unitarity problem of the original Higgs inflation becomes less severe. For a simple case where the couplings of the heavy Weyl gauge field appears from the non-minimal couplings to the Ricci curvature scalar in Weyl gravity, we find that the resultant model for Higgs inflation is the same as in the Palatini formulation for Higgs inflation. The crucial difference of our model from the Palatini formulation for Higgs inflation is that there is a light Weyl gauge field coupled to the Higgs fields. We also generalize the unitarization of Higgs inflation with general covariant kinetic terms for the dilaton and the Higgs fields, and realize a successful Higgs inflation, interpolating between the Palatini formulation for Higgs inflation and a Higgs-like inflation. We also discuss the Higgs mechanism for the light Weyl gauge field with an extra singlet scalar and show some interesting signatures for Higgs physics, such as the overall suppression of Higgs couplings and the decay of the light Weyl gauge field into a pair of Higgs bosons.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figur