3,011 research outputs found
Can Inflation be Falsified?
Despite its central role in modern cosmology, doubts are often expressed as
to whether cosmological inflation is really a falsifiable theory. We
distinguish two facets of inflation, one as a theory of initial conditions for
the hot big bang and the other as a model for the origin of structure in the
Universe. We argue that the latter can readily be excluded by observations, and
that there are also a number of ways in which the former can find itself in
conflict with observational data. Both aspects of the theory are indeed
falsifiable.Comment: 7 pages LaTeX file with two figures incorporated by epsf. Fifth Prize
in Gravity Research Foundation Essay Competition. To appear, General
Relativity and Gravitatio
Fluorine gas as a cleaning agent for Apollo bulk-sample containers
A technique has been developed for cleaning Apollo bulk sample containers using fluorine gas as the cleaning agent
Particle Production of Vector Fields: Scale Invariance is Attractive
In a model of an Abelian vector boson with a Maxwell kinetic term and non-negative mass-squared it is demonstrated that, under fairly general conditions during inflation, a scale-invariant spectrum of perturbations for the components of a vector field, massive or not, whose kinetic function (and mass) is modulated by the inflaton field is an attractor solution. If the field is massless, or if it remains light until the end of inflation, this attractor solution also generates anisotropic stress, which can render inflation weakly anisotropic. The above two characteristics of the attractor solution can source (independently or combined together) significant statistical anisotropy in the curvature perturbation, which may well be observable in the near future
Black holes and gravitational waves in string cosmology
Pre--big bang models of inflation based on string cosmology produce a
stochastic gravitational wave background whose spectrum grows with decreasing
wavelength, and which may be detectable using interferometers such as LIGO. We
point out that the gravitational wave spectrum is closely tied to the density
perturbation spectrum, and that the condition for producing observable
gravitational waves is very similar to that for producing an observable density
of primordial black holes. Detection of both would provide strong support to
the string cosmology scenario.Comment: 6 pages RevTeX fil
False Vacuum Inflation with a Quartic Potential
We consider a variant of Hybrid Inflation, where inflation is driven by two
interacting scalar fields, one of which has a `Mexican hat' potential and the
other a quartic potential. Given the appropriate initial conditions one of the
fields can be trapped in a false vacuum state, supported by couplings to the
other field. The energy of this vacuum can be used to drive inflation, which
ends when the vacuum decays to one of its true minima. Depending on parameters,
it is possible for inflation to proceed via two separate epochs, with the
potential temporarily steepening sufficiently to suspend inflation. We use
numerical simulations to analyse the possibilities, and emphasise the
shortcomings of the slow-roll approximation for analysing this scenario. We
also calculate the density perturbations produced, which can have a spectral
index greater than one.Comment: 10 pages, RevTeX 3.0, no figure
Calculating the local-type fNL for slow-roll inflation with a non-vacuum initial state
Single-field slow-roll inflation with a non-vacuum initial state has an
enhanced bispectrum in the local limit. We numerically calculate the local-type
fNL signal in the CMB that would be measured for such models (including the
full transfer function and 2D projection). The nature of the result depends on
several parameters, including the occupation number N_k, the phase angle
\theta_k between the Bogoliubov parameters, and the slow-roll parameter
\epsilon. In the most conservative case, where one takes \theta_k \approx
\eta_0 k (justified by physical reasons discussed within) and \epsilon\lesssim
0.01, we find that 0 < fNL < 1.52 (\epsilon/0.01), which is likely too small to
be detected in the CMB. However, if one is willing to allow a constant value
for the phase angle \theta_k and N_k=O(1), fNL can be much larger and/or
negative (depending on the choice of \theta_k), e.g. fNL \approx 28
(\epsilon/0.01) or -6.4 (\epsilon/0.01); depending on \epsilon, these scenarios
could be detected by Planck or a future satellite. While we show that these
results are not actually a violation of the single-field consistency relation,
they do produce a value for fNL that is considerably larger than that usually
predicted from single-field inflation.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure. v2: Version accepted for publication in PRD. Added
greatly expanded discussion of the phase angle \theta_k; this allows the
possibility of enhanced fNL, as mentioned in abstract. More explicit
comparisons with earlier wor
On the reliability of inflaton potential reconstruction
If primordial scalar and tensor perturbation spectra can be inferred from
observations of the cosmic background radiation and large-scale structure, then
one might hope to reconstruct a unique single-field inflaton potential capable
of generating the observed spectra. In this paper we examine conditions under
which such a potential can be reliably reconstructed. For it to be possible at
all, the spectra must be well fit by a Taylor series expansion. A complete
reconstruction requires a statistically-significant tensor mode to be measured
in the microwave background. We find that the observational uncertainties
dominate the theoretical error from use of the slow-roll approximation, and
conclude that the reconstruction procedure will never insidiously lead to an
irrelevant potential.Comment: 16 page LaTeX file with eight postscript figures embedded with epsf;
no special macros neede
Reconstructing the Inflaton Potential
A review is presented of recent work by the authors concerning the use of
large scale structure and microwave background anisotropy data to determine the
potential of the inflaton field. The importance of a detection of the
stochastic gravitational wave background is emphasised, and some preliminary
new results of tests of the method on simulated data sets with uncertainties
are described. (Proceedings of ``Unified Symmetry in the Small and in the
Large'', Coral Gables, 1994)Comment: 13 pages, uuencoded postscript file with figures included (LaTeX file
available from ARL), FERMILAB-Conf 94/189
Observational Constraints on Open Inflation Models
We discuss observational constraints on models of open inflation. Current
data from large-scale structure and the cosmic microwave background prefer
models with blue spectra and/or Omega_0 >= 0.3--0.5. Models with minimal
anisotropy at large angles are strongly preferred.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, with 2 postscript figures included. Second Figure
correcte
Cosmic microwave background multipole alignments in slab topologies
Several analyses of the microwave sky maps from the Wilkinson Microwave
Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) have drawn attention to alignments amongst the
low-order multipoles. Amongst the various possible explanations, an effect of
cosmic topology has been invoked by several authors. We focus on an alignment
of the first four multipoles (\ell = 2 to 5) found by Land and Magueijo (2005),
and investigate the distribution of their alignment statistic for a set of
simulated cosmic microwave background maps for cosmologies with slab-like
topology. We find that this topology does offer a modest increase in the
probability of the observed value, but that even for the smallest topology
considered the probability of the observed value remains below one percent.Comment: 6 pages RevTex with 6 figures included. Minor changes to match
version accepted as Physical Review D Rapid Communicatio
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