4 research outputs found
Statistical Anisotropy from Anisotropic Inflation
We review an inflationary scenario with the anisotropic expansion rate. An
anisotropic inflationary universe can be realized by a vector field coupled
with an inflaton, which can be regarded as a counter example to the cosmic
no-hair conjecture. We show generality of anisotropic inflation and derive a
universal property. We formulate cosmological perturbation theory in
anisotropic inflation. Using the formalism, we show anisotropic inflation gives
rise to the statistical anisotropy in primordial fluctuations. We also explain
a method to test anisotropic inflation using the cosmic microwave background
radiation (CMB).Comment: 32 pages, 5 figures, invited review for CQG, published versio
Brane cosmological solutions in six-dimensional warped flux compactifications
We study cosmology on a conical brane in the six-dimensional
Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton system, where the extra dimensions are compactified by
a magnetic flux. We systematically construct exact cosmological solutions using
the fact that the system is equivalently described by (6+n)-dimensional pure
Einstein-Maxwell theory via dimensional reduction. In particular, we find a
power-law inflationary solution for a general dilatonic coupling. When the
dilatonic coupling is given by that of Nishino-Sezgin chiral supergravity, this
reduces to the known solution which is not inflating. The power-law solution is
shown to be the late-time attractor. We also investigate cosmological tensor
perturbations in this model using the (6+n)-dimensional description. We obtain
the separable equation of motion and find that there always exist a zero mode,
while tachyonic modes are absent in the spectrum. The mass spectrum of
Kaluza-Klein modes is obtained numerically.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures; v2: references added; v3: version published in
JCA
Instability of anisotropic cosmological solutions supported by vector fields
Models with vector fields acquiring a nonvanishing vacuum expectation value along one spatial direction have been proposed to sustain a prolonged stage of anisotropic accelerated expansion. Such models have been used for realizations of early time inflation, with a possible relation to the large scale cosmic microwave background anomalies, or of the late time dark energy. We show that, quite generally, the concrete realizations proposed so far are plagued by instabilities (either ghosts or unstable growth of the linearized perturbations) which can be ultimately related to the longitudinal vector polarization present in them. Phenomenological results based on these models are therefore unreliable
Ghost instabilities of cosmological models with vector fields nonminimally coupled to the curvature
We prove that many cosmological models characterized by vectors nonminimally coupled to the curvature (such as the Turner-Widrow mechanism for the production of magnetic fields during inflation, and models of vector inflation or vector curvaton) contain ghosts. The ghosts are associated with the longitudinal vector polarization present in these models and are found from studying the sign of the eigenvalues of the kinetic matrix for the physical perturbations. Ghosts introduce two main problems: (1) they make the theories ill defined at the quantum level in the high energy/subhorizon regime (and create serious problems for finding a well-behaved UV completion), and (2) they create an instability already at the linearized level. This happens because the eigenvalue corresponding to the ghost crosses zero during the cosmological evolution. At this point the linearized equations for the perturbations become singular (we show that this happens for all the models mentioned above). We explicitly solve the equations in the simplest cases of a vector without a vacuum expectation value in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker geometry, and of a vector with a vacuum expectation value plus a cosmological constant, and we show that indeed the solutions of the linearized equations diverge when these equations become singular