Reconstruction of the primordial fluctuation spectrum from the five-year WMAP data by the cosmic inversion method with band-power decorrelation analysis

The primordial curvature fluctuation spectrum is reconstructed by the cosmic inversion method using the five-year WMAP data of the cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropy. We apply the covariance matrix analysis and decompose the reconstructed spectrum into statistically independent band-powers. The statistically significant deviation from a simple power-law spectrum suggested by the analysis of the first-year data is not found in the five-year data except possibly at one point near the border of the wavenumber domain where accurate reconstruction is possible.Comment: 9page

Metric perturbation from inflationary magnetic field and generic bound on inflation models

There is an observational indication of extragalactic magnetic fields. No known astrophysical process can explain the origin of such large scale magnetic fields, which motivates us to look for their origin in primordial inflation. By solving the linearized Einstein equations, we study metric perturbations sourced by magnetic fields that are produced during inflation. This leads to a simple but robust bound on the inflation models by requiring that the induced metric perturbation should not exceed the observed value 10^-5. In case of the standard single field inflation model, the bound can be converted into a lower bound on the Hubble parameter during inflation.Comment: 14 page

Hiding cosmic strings in supergravity D-term inflation

The influence of higher-order terms in the K\"{a}hler potential of the supergravity D-term inflation model on the density perturbation is studied. We show that these terms can make the inflaton potential flatter, which lowers the energy scale of inflation under the COBE/WMAP normalization. As a result, the mass per unit length of cosmic strings, which are produced at the end of inflation, can be reduced to a harmless but detectable level without introducing a tiny Yukawa coupling. Our scenario can naturally be implemented in models with a low cut-off as in Type I or Type IIB orientifold models.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Band-power reconstruction of the primordial fluctuation spectrum by the maximum likelihood reconstruction method

The primordial curvature fluctuation spectrum is reconstructed by the maximum likelihood reconstruction method using the five-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe data of the cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropy. We apply the covariance matrix analysis and decompose the reconstructed spectrum into statistically independent band-powers. The prominent peak off a simple power-law spectrum found in our previous analysis turn out to be a $3.3\sigma$ deviation. From the statistics of primordial spectra reconstructed from mock observations, the probability that a primordial spectrum including such excess is realized in a power-law model is estimated to be about 2%.Comment: 9 page

Thermal background can solve the cosmological moduli problem

It is shown that the coherent field oscillation of moduli fields with weak or TeV scale masses can dissipate its energy efficiently if they have a derivative coupling to standard bosonic fields in a thermal state. This mechanism may provide a new solution to the cosmological moduli problem in some special situations.Comment: 4 pages. revised versio

G-inflation: inflation driven by the Galileon field

We propose a new class of inflation model, G-inflation, which has a Galileon-like nonlinear derivative interaction of the form $G(\phi, (\nabla\phi)^2)\Box\phi$ in the Lagrangian with the resultant equations of motion being of second order. It is shown that (almost) scale-invariant curvature fluctuations can be generated even in the exactly de Sitter background and that the tensor-to-scalar ratio can take a significantly larger value than in the standard inflation models, violating the standard consistency relation. Furthermore, violation of the null energy condition can occur without any instabilities. As a result, the spectral index of tensor modes can be blue, which makes it easier to observe quantum gravitational waves from inflation by the planned gravitational-wave experiments such as LISA and DECIGO as well as by the upcoming CMB experiments such as Planck and CMBpol.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure; v2: major clarification; v3: original version of the article published in Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 231302 (2010

Primordial non-Gaussianity from G-inflation

We present a comprehensive study of primordial fluctuations generated from G-inflation, in which the inflaton Lagrangian is of the form $K(\phi, X)-G(\phi, X)\Box\phi$ with $X=-(\partial\phi)^2/2$. The Lagrangian still gives rise to second-order gravitational and scalar field equations, and thus offers a more generic class of single-field inflation than ever studied, with a richer phenomenology. We compute the power spectrum and the bispectrum, and clarify how the non-Gaussian amplitude depends upon parameters such as the sound speed. In so doing we try to keep as great generality as possible, allowing for non slow-roll and deviation from the exact scale-invariance.Comment: 12 pages; v2: Minor changes, added 4 figures, matches the published versio

Density fluctuations in one-field inflation

Any one-field inflation is actually realized in a multifield configuration because the inflaton must have couplings with other fields to reheat the universe and is coupled to all other fields at least gravitationally. In all single inflaton models, it is explicitly or implicitly assumed that the heavier fields are stuck to their potential minima during inflation, which are time-dependent in general. We present a formalism to calculate curvature perturbations in such a time-dependent background and show that the proper expression can be obtained using a single-field analysis with a reduced potential in which all these heavy fields are situated at their respective, time-dependent minima. Our results provide a firm ground on the conventional calculation.Comment: 9 pages, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Neutralino Dark Matter from Heavy Gravitino Decay

We propose a new scenario of non-thermal production of neutralino cold dark matter, in which the overproduction problem of lightest supersymmetric particles (LSPs) in the standard thermal history is naturally solved. The mechanism requires a heavy modulus field which decays mainly to ordinary particles releasing large entropy to dilute gravitinos produced just after inflation and thermal relics of LSPs. Significant amount of gravitinos are also pair-produced at the decay, which subsequently decay into the neutralinos. We identify the regions of the parameter space in which the requisite abundance of the neutralino dark matter is obtained without spoiling the big-bang nucleosynthesis by injection of hadronic showers from gravitino decay. The neutralino abundance obtained in this mechanism is insensitive to the details of the superparticle mass spectrum, unlike the standard thermal abundance. We also briefly mention the testability of the scenario in future experiments.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Space laser interferometers can determine the thermal history of the early Universe

It is shown that space-based gravitational wave detectors such as DECIGO and/or Big Bang Observer (BBO) will provide us with invaluable information on the cosmic thermal history after inflation and they will be able to determine the reheat temperature $T_R$ provided that it lies in the range preferred by the cosmological gravitino problem, $T_R\sim 10^{5-9}$ GeV. Therefore it is strongly desired that they will be put into practice as soon as possible.Comment: 5 page