1 research outputs found
Predictions for Nongaussianity from Nonlocal Inflation
In our previous work the nonlinearity parameter f_NL, which characterizes
nongaussianity in the cosmic microwave background, was estimated for a class of
inflationary models based on nonlocal field theory. These models include p-adic
inflation and generically have the remarkable property that slow roll inflation
can proceed even with an extremely steep potential. Previous calculations found
that large nongaussianity is possible; however, the technical complications
associated with studying perturbations in theories with infinitely many
derivatives forced us to provide only an order of magnitude estimate for f_NL.
We reconsider the problem of computing f_NL in nonlocal inflation models,
showing that a particular choice of field basis and recent progress in
cosmological perturbation theory makes an exact computation possible. We
provide the first quantitatively accurate computation of the bispectrum in
nonlocal inflation, confirming our previous claim that it can be observably
large. We show that the shape of the bispectrum in this class of models makes
it observationally distinguishable from Dirac-Born-Infeld inflation models.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures; references added, sign convention for f_NL
clarified, minor correction