32,696 research outputs found
Minimal Theoretical Uncertainties in Inflationary Predictions
During inflation, primordial energy density fluctuations are created from
approximate de Sitter vacuum quantum fluctuations redshifted out of the horizon
after which they are frozen as perturbations in the background curvature. In
this paper we demonstrate that there exists an intrinsic theoretical
uncertainty in the inflationary predictions for the curvature perturbations due
to the failure of the well known prescriptions to specify the vacuum uniquely.
Specifically, we show that the two often used prescriptions for defining the
initial vacuum state -- the Bunch-Davies prescription and the adiabatic vacuum
prescription (even if the adiabaticity order to which the vacuum is specified
is infinity) -- fail to specify the vacuum uniquely in generic inflationary
spacetimes in which the total duration of inflation is finite. This conclusion
holds despite the absence of any trans-Planckian effects or effective field
theory cutoff related effects. We quantify the uncertainty which is applicable
to slow roll inflationary scenarios as well as for general FRW spacetimes and
find that the uncertainty is generically small. This uncertainty should be
treated as a minimal uncertainty that underlies all curvature perturbation
calculations.Comment: LaTeX file, 35 pages; some typos correcte
Gravity Waves as a Probe of Hubble Expansion Rate During An Electroweak Scale Phase Transition
Just as big bang nucleosynthesis allows us to probe the expansion rate when
the temperature of the universe was around 1 MeV, the measurement of gravity
waves from electroweak scale first order phase transitions may allow us to
probe the expansion rate when the temperature of the universe was at the
electroweak scale. We compute the simple transformation rule for the gravity
wave spectrum under the scaling transformation of the Hubble expansion rate. We
then apply this directly to the scenario of quintessence kination domination
and show how gravity wave spectra would shift relative to LISA and BBO
projected sensitivities.Comment: 28 pages, 2 figures
On the gravitational production of superheavy dark matter
The dark matter in the universe can be in the form of a superheavy matter
species (WIMPZILLA). Several mechanisms have been proposed for the production
of WIMPZILLA particles during or immediately following the inflationary epoch.
Perhaps the most attractive mechanism is through gravitational particle
production, where particles are produced simply as a result of the expansion of
the universe. In this paper we present a detailed numerical calculation of
WIMPZILLA gravitational production in hybrid-inflation models and
natural-inflation models. Generalizing these findings, we also explore the
dependence of the gravitational production mechanism on various models of
inflation. We show that superheavy dark matter production seems to be robust,
with Omega_X h^2 ~ (M_X / (10^11 GeV))^2 (T_RH / (10^9 GeV)), so long as M_X <
H_I, where M_X is the WIMPZILLA mass, T_RH is the reheat temperature, and H_I
is the expansion rate of the universe during inflation.Comment: 26 pages, 7 figures; LaTeX; submitted to Physical Review D; minor
typographical error correcte
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