655 research outputs found
Constraining Galileon inflation
In this short paper, we present constraints on the Galileon inflationary model from the CMB bispectrum. We employ a principal-component analysis of the independent degrees of freedom constrained by data and apply this to the WMAP 9-year data to constrain the free parameters of the model. A simple Bayesian comparison establishes that support for the Galileon model from bispectrum data is at best weak
Disformal transformations on the CMB
In this work we study the role of disformal transformation on cosmological backgrounds and its relation to the speed of sound for tensor modes. A speed different from one for tensor modes can arise in several contexts, such as Galileons theories or massive gravity, nevertheless the speed is very constrained to be one by observations of gravitational wave emission. It has been shown that in inflation a disformal trans- formation allows to set the speed for tensor modes to one without making changes to the curvature power spectrum. Here we show that this invariance does not hold when considering the CMB anisotropy power spectrum. It turns out that the after doing the transformation there is an imprint on the acoustic peaks and the diffusion damping. This has interesting consequences; here we explore quartic galileon theories which allow a modified speed for tensor modes. For these theories the transformation can be used to constraint the parameter space in different regime
Growth Histories in Bimetric Massive Gravity
We perform cosmological perturbation theory in Hassan-Rosen bimetric gravity
for general homogeneous and isotropic backgrounds. In the de Sitter
approximation, we obtain decoupled sets of massless and massive scalar
gravitational fluctuations. Matter perturbations then evolve like in Einstein
gravity. We perturb the future de Sitter regime by the ratio of matter to dark
energy, producing quasi-de Sitter space. In this more general setting the
massive and massless fluctuations mix. We argue that in the quasi-de Sitter
regime, the growth of structure in bimetric gravity differs from that of
Einstein gravity.Comment: 28 pages + appendix, 11 figure
Estimates of the coverage of parameter space by Latin Hypercube and Orthogonal Array-based sampling
In this paper we use counting arguments to prove that the expected percentage coverage of a d dimensional parameter space of size n when performing k trials with either Latin Hypercube sampling or Orthogonal Array-based Latin Hypercube sampling is the same. We then extend these results to an experimental design setting by projecting onto a t < d dimensional subspace. These results are confirmed by simulations. The theory presented has both theoretical and practical significance in modelling and simulation science when sampling over high dimensional spaces. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
P-term Potentials from 4-D Supergravity
P-term inflation arises in some models of brane inflation. Within N=2
supersymmetry the scalar potential contains a vector of Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI)
terms . Depending on the direction of this vector it is possible to get
D-term and F-term inflation or a mix of these models. In this paper we review
the problems of embedding the P-term model in supergravity and show how these
can be solved by considering the truncation from an N=2 theory to N=1. We show
that with a simple gauging the scalar potential can include F-term or D-term
parts but not both. The gauging can be altered so that both F-terms and D-terms
containing FI constants can be included. In all cases we display the
inflationary trajectory and, if it exists, the supersymmetric minimum.Comment: 21 pages, no figure
Cosmological perturbations in Massive Gravity and the Higuchi bound
In de Sitter spacetime there exists an absolute minimum for the mass of a
spin-2 field set by the Higuchi bound m^2 \geq 2H^2. We generalize this bound
to arbitrary spatially flat FRW geometries in the context of the recently
proposed ghost-free models of Massive Gravity with an FRW reference metric, by
performing a Hamiltonian analysis for cosmological perturbations. We find that
the bound generically indicates that spatially flat FRW solutions in FRW
massive gravity, which exhibit a Vainshtein mechanism in the background as
required by consistency with observations, imply that the helicity zero mode is
a ghost. In contradistinction to previous works, the tension between the
Higuchi bound and the Vainshtein mechanism is equally strong regardless of the
equation of state for matter.Comment: 24 pages, typos and conventions correcte
Decoding the bispectrum of single-field inflation
Galileon fields arise naturally from the decoupling limit of massive
gravities, and possess special self-interactions which are protected by a
spacetime generalization of Galilean symmetry. We briefly revisit the
inflationary phenomenology of Galileon theories. Working from recent
computations of the fluctuation Lagrangian to cubic order in the most general
model with second-order equations of motion, we show that a distinct shape is
present but with suppressed amplitude. A similar shape has been found in other
higher-derivative models. It may be visible in a theory tuned to suppress the
leading-order shapes, or if the overall bispectrum has large amplitude. Using a
partial-wave expansion of the bispectrum, we suggest a possible origin for the
frequent appearance of this shape. It follows that models with very disparate
microphysics can produce very similar bispectra. We argue that it may be more
profitable to distinguish these models by searching for relations between the
amplitudes of these common shapes. We illustrate this method using the example
of DBI and k-inflation.Comment: v1: 25 pages, including tables, an appendix and references. v2: minor
clarifications about the lowest-order consistency relations; matches version
published in JCA
Galilean symmetry in the effective theory of inflation: new shapes of non-Gaussianity
We study the consequences of imposing an approximate Galilean symmetry on the
Effective Theory of Inflation, the theory of small perturbations around the
inflationary background. This approach allows us to study the effect of
operators with two derivatives on each field, which can be the leading
interactions due to non-renormalization properties of the Galilean Lagrangian.
In this case cubic non-Gaussianities are given by three independent operators,
containing up to six derivatives, two with a shape close to equilateral and one
peaking on flattened isosceles triangles. The four-point function is larger
than in models with small speed of sound and potentially observable with the
Planck satellite.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures. v2: minor changes to match JCAP published
versio
A Field Range Bound for General Single-Field Inflation
We explore the consequences of a detection of primordial tensor fluctuations
for general single-field models of inflation. Using the effective theory of
inflation, we propose a generalization of the Lyth bound. Our bound applies to
all single-field models with two-derivative kinetic terms for the scalar
fluctuations and is always stronger than the corresponding bound for slow-roll
models. This shows that non-trivial dynamics can't evade the Lyth bound. We
also present a weaker, but completely universal bound that holds whenever the
Null Energy Condition (NEC) is satisfied at horizon crossing.Comment: 16 page
On the redundancy of operators and the bispectrum in the most general second-order scalar-tensor theory
In this short note we explain how to use the linear equation of motions to
simplify the third-order action for the cosmological fluctuations. No field
redefinition is needed in this exact procedure which considerably limits the
range of independent cubic operators, and hence of possible shapes of the
primordial bispectrum. We demonstrate this in the context of the most general
single-field scalar-tensor theory with second-order equations of motion, whose
third-order action has been calculated recently in arXiv:1107.2642 and
1107.3917. In particular, we show that the three cubic operators initially
pointed out in these works as new compared to k-inflation can actually be
expressed in terms of standard k-inflationary operators.Comment: 9 pages. Wordings changed; matches version published in JCA
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