Cosmological Perturbations and the Weinberg Theorem

Abstract

The celebrated Weinberg theorem in cosmological perturbation theory states that there always exist two adiabatic scalar modes in which the comoving curvature perturbation is conserved on super-horizon scales. In particular, when the perturbations are generated from a single source, such as in single field models of inflation, both of the two allowed independent solutions are adiabatic and conserved on super-horizon scales. There are few known examples in literature which violate this theorem. We revisit the theorem and specify the loopholes in some technical assumptions which violate the theorem in models of non-attractor inflation, fluid inflation, solid inflation and in the model of pseudo conformal universe.Comment: 26 pages, no figur