12 research outputs found
The Trispectrum in the Multi-brid Inflation
The trispectrum is at least as important as the bispectrum and its size can
be characterized by two parameters and . In this short
paper, we focus on the Multi-brid inflation, in particular the two-brid
inflation model in arXiv.0805.0974, and find that is always
positive and roughly equals to for the low scale
inflation, but can be negative or positive and its order of magnitude
can be the same as that of or even largerComment: 12 pages; minor correction, refs added; further refs added, version
for publication in JCA
A geometric description of the non-Gaussianity generated at the end of multi-field inflation
In this paper we mainly focus on the curvature perturbation generated at the
end of multi-field inflation, such as the multi-brid inflation. Since the
curvature perturbation is produced on the super-horizon scale, the bispectrum
and trispectrum have a local shape. The size of bispectrum is measured by
and the trispectrum is characterized by two parameters and
. For simplicity, the trajectory of inflaton is assumed to be a
straight line in the field space and then the entropic perturbations do not
contribute to the curvature perturbation during inflation. As long as the
background inflaton path is not orthogonal to the hyper-surface for inflation
to end, the entropic perturbation can make a contribution to the curvature
perturbation at the end of inflation and a large local-type non-Gaussiantiy is
expected. An interesting thing is that the non-Gaussianity parameters are
completely determined by the geometric properties of the hyper-surface of the
end of inflation. For example, is proportional to the curvature of the
curve on this hyper-surface along the adiabatic direction and is
related to the change of the curvature radius per unit arc-length of this
curve. Both and can be positive or negative respectively, but
must be positive and not less than .Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures; refs added; a correction to \tau_{NL} for
n-field inflation added, version accepted for publication in JCA
Lectures on inflation and cosmological perturbations
The purpose of these lectures is to give a pedagogical introduction to
inflation and the production of primordial perturbations, as well as a review
of some of the latest developments in this domain. After a short introduction,
we review the main principles of the Hot Big Bang model, as well as its
limitations. This motivates the study of cosmological inflation induced by a
slow-rolling scalar field. We then turn to the analysis of cosmological
perturbations, and explain how the vacuum quantum fluctuations are amplified
during an inflationary phase. The next step consists in relating the
perturbations generated during inflation to the perturbations of the
cosmological fluid in the radiation dominated phase. The final part of these
lectures gives a review of more general models of inflation, involving multiple
fields or non standard kinetic terms. Although more complicated, these models
are usually motivated by high energy physics and they can lead to specific
signatures that are not expected in the simplest models of inflation. After
introducing a very general formalism to describe perturbations in multi-field
models with arbitrary kinetic terms, several interesting cases are presented.
We also stress the role of entropy perturbations in the context of multi-field
models. Finally, we discuss in detail the non-Gaussianities of the primordial
perturbations and some models that could produce a detectable level of
non-Gaussianities.Comment: 56 pages, 5 figures; Lectures given at the Second TRR33 Winter School
on cosmology, Passo del Tonale (Italy), December 200
DPPI May Activate KLK4 during Enamel Formation
Kallikrein-4 (KLK4) is a serine protease expressed during enamel maturation, and proteolytic processing of the enamel matrix by KLK4 is critical for proper enamel formation. KLK4 is secreted as an inactive zymogen (pro-KLK4), and identification of its activator remains elusive. Dipeptidyl peptidase I (DPPI) is a cysteine aminopeptidase that can activate several serine proteases. In this study, we sought to examine DPPI expression in mouse enamel organ and determine if DPPI could activate KLK4. Real-time PCR showed DPPI expression throughout amelogenesis, with highest expression at maturation, and immunohistochemical staining of mouse incisors confirmed DPPI expression by ameloblasts. We demonstrate in vitro that DPPI activates pro-KLK4 to cleave a fluorogenic peptide containing a KLK4 cleavage site. Examination of mature enamel from DPPI null mice by FTIR showed no significant accumulation of protein; however, microhardness testing revealed that loss of DPPI expression significantly reduced enamel hardness