Wronskian Formulation of the Spectrum of Curvature Perturbations

We present a new formulation for the evaluation of the primordial spectrum of curvature perturbations generated during inflation, using the fact that the Wronskian of the scalar field perturbation equation is constant. In the literature, there are many works on the same issue focusing on a few specific aspects or effects. Here we deal with the general multi-component scalar field, and show that our new formalism gives a method to evaluate the final amplitude of the curvature perturbation systematically and economically. The advantage of the new method is that one only has to solve a single mode of the scalar field perturbation equation backward in time from the end of inflation to the stage at which the perturbation is within the Hubble horizon, at which the initial values of the scalar field perturbations are given. We also clarify the relation of the new method with the new delta N formalism recently developed in Lee et al.(2005).Comment: 13 pages, 1 figures, submitted to JCAP, Minor corrections have been mad

Gravitational wave background as a probe of the primordial black hole abundance

Formation of significant number of primordial black holes (PBHs) is realized if and only if primordial density fluctuations have a large amplitude, which means that tensor perturbations generated from these scalar perturbations as a second order effect are also large and comparable to the observational data. We show that pulsar timing observation could find/rule out PBHs with \sim 10^2 M_solar which are considered as a candidate of intermediate-mass black holes and that PBHs with mass range 10^{20-26} g, which serves as a candidate of dark matter, may be probed by future space-based laser interferometers and atomic interferometers.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

What happens when the inflaton stops during inflation

The spectrum of adiabatic density perturbation generated during inflation is studied in the case the time derivative of an inflation-driving scalar field (inflaton) vanishes at some time during inflation. It is shown that the nondecaying mode of perturbation has a finite value even in this case and that its amplitude is given by the standard formula with the time derivation of the scalar field replaced by the potential gradient using the slow-roll equation

New inflation in supergravity with a chaotic initial condition

We propose a self-consistent scenario of new inflation in supergravity. Chaotic inflation first takes place around the Planck scale, which solves the longevity problem, namely, why the universe can live much beyond the Planck time, and also gives an adequate initial condition for new inflation. Then, new inflation lasts long enough to generate primordial fluctuations for the large scale structure, which generally has a tilted spectrum with the spectral index $n_{s} < 1$. The successive decay of the inflaton leads to the reheating temperature low enough to avoid the overproduction of gravitinos in a wide range of the gravitino mass.Comment: 11 pages. To appear in Phys. Rev.

A New delta N Formalism for Multi-Component Inflation

The delta N formula that relates the final curvature perturbation on comoving slices to the inflaton perturbation on flat slices after horizon crossing is a powerful and intuitive tool to compute the curvature perturbation spectrum from inflation. However, it is customarily assumed further that the conventional slow-roll condition is satisfied, and satisfied by all components, during horizon crossing. In this paper, we develop a new delta N formalism for multi-component inflation that can be applied in the most general situations. This allows us to generalize the idea of general slow-roll inflation to the multi-component case, in particular only applying the general slow-roll condition to the relevant component. We compute the power spectrum of the curvature perturbation in multi-component general slow-roll inflation, and find that under quite general conditions it is invertible.Comment: 24 pages, no figur

Scale-invariance in expanding and contracting universes from two-field models

We study cosmological perturbations produced by the most general two-derivative actions involving two scalar fields, coupled to Einstein gravity, with an arbitrary field space metric, that admit scaling solutions. For contracting universes, we show that scale-invariant adiabatic perturbations can be produced continuously as modes leave the horizon for any equation of state parameter $w \ge 0$. The corresponding background solutions are unstable, which we argue is a universal feature of contracting models that yield scale-invariant spectra. For expanding universes, we find that nearly scale-invariant adiabatic perturbation spectra can only be produced for $w \approx -1$, and that the corresponding scaling solutions are attractors. The presence of a nontrivial metric on field space is a crucial ingredient in our results.Comment: 23 pages, oversight in perturbations calculation corrected, conclusions for expanding models modifie

Extended Curvaton reheating in inflationary models

The curvaton reheating in a non-oscillatory inflationary universe model is studied in a Jordan-Brans-Dicke theory. For different scenarios, the temperature of reheating is computed. The result tells us that the reheating temperature becomes practically independent of the Jordan-Brans-Dicke parameter $w$. This reheating temperature results to be quite different when compared with that obtained from Einstein`s theory of gravity.Comment: Accepted by JCAP, 12 pages, 1 Figur

Curvature and isocurvature perturbations in two-field inflation

We study cosmological perturbations in two-field inflation, allowing for non-standard kinetic terms. We calculate analytically the spectra of curvature and isocurvature modes at Hubble crossing, up to first order in the slow-roll parameters. We also compute numerically the evolution of the curvature and isocurvature modes from well within the Hubble radius until the end of inflation. We show explicitly for a few examples, including the recently proposed model of ‘roulette’ inflation, how isocurvature perturbations affect significantly the curvature perturbation between Hubble crossing and the end of inflation.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/58173/2/jcap7_07_014.pd

Supergravity based inflation models: a review

In this review, we discuss inflation models based on supergravity. After explaining the difficulties in realizing inflation in the context of supergravity, we show how to evade such difficulties. Depending on types of inflation, we give concrete examples, particularly paying attention to chaotic inflation because the ongoing experiments like Planck might detect the tensor perturbations in near future. We also discuss inflation models in Jordan frame supergravity, motivated by Higgs inflation.Comment: 30 pages, invited review for Classical and Quantum Gravity, published versio

Classicality of primordial fluctuations and Primordial Black Holes

The production of Primordial Black Holes (PBH) from inflationary perturbations provides a physical process where the effective classicality of the fluctuations does not hold for certain scales. For adiabatic perturbations produced during inflation, this range of scales corresponds to PBH with masses $M\ll 10^{15}$ g. For PBH with masses $M\sim M_H(t_e)$, the horizon mass at the end of inflation, the generation process during the preheating stage could be classical as well, in contrast to the formation of PBH on these scales by adiabatic inflationary perturbations. For the non evaporated PBH, the generation process is essentially classical.Comment: uses LaTeX, 8 pages; one ref. added; to appear in Int. J. of Mod. Physics