Warm ekpyrosis

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.

Inflationary cosmology and the scale-invariant spectrum

Higher-form flux that extends in all 3+1 dimensions of spacetime is a source of positive vacuum energy that can drive meta-stable eternal inflation. If the flux also threads compact extra dimensions, the spontaneous nucleation of a bubble of brane charged under the flux can trigger a classical cascade that steadily unwinds many units of flux, gradually decreasing the vacuum energy while inflating the bubble, until the cascade ends in the self-annihilation of the brane into radiation.With an initial number of flux quanta Q0≳N, this can result in N efolds of inflationary expansion while producing a scale-invariant spectrum of adiabatic density perturbations with amplitude and tilt consistent with observation. The power spectrum has an oscillatory component that does not decay away during inflation, relatively large tensor power, and interesting non-Gaussianities.Unwinding inflation fits naturally into the string landscape, and our preliminary conclusion is that consistency with observation can be attained without fine-tuning the string parameters. The initial conditions necessary for the unwinding phase are produced automatically by bubble formation, so long as the critical radius of the bubble is smaller than at least one of the compact dimensions threaded by flux.

When electric-type flux threads compact extra dimensions, a quantum nucleation event can break a flux line and initiate a cascade that unwinds many units of flux. Here, we present a novel mechanism for inflation based on this phenomenon. From the 4D point of view, the cascade begins with the formation of a bubble containing an open Friedmann–Robertson–Walker cosmology, but the vacuum energy inside the bubble is initially only slightly reduced, and subsequently decreases gradually throughout the cascade. If the initial flux number Q0≳O(100), during the cascade the universe can undergo N≳60 efolds of inflationary expansion with gradually decreasing Hubble constant, producing a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of adiabatic density perturbations with amplitude and tilt consistent with observation, and a potentially observable level of non-Gaussianity and tensor modes. The power spectrum has a small oscillatory component that does not decay away during inflation, with a period set approximately by the light-crossing time of the compact dimension(s). Since the ingredients are fluxes threading compact dimensions, this mechanism fits naturally into the string landscape, but does not appear to suffer from the eta problem or require fine-tuning (beyond the usual anthropic requirement of small vacuum energy after reheating).

The airborne Na lidar and Christmas Island MF radar were used to measure the spectra of gravity wave density and wind perturbations during ALOHA‐90 on the 25 March mission. Wave activity was especially strong near Christmas Island with measured wind variances between 1000 and almost 1400 (m/s)². The vertical and meridional wave number spectra of horizontal wind perturbations exhibited power law shapes with slopes of −3.17 and −2.22, respectively. The temporal frequency spectrum appeared to be influenced by strong Doppler effects and had a shallow slope near −1. The magnitudes of the spectra were 4.9 × 105 (m/s)²/(cyc/m) at the vertical wave number 2π/(4 km), 8.4 × 106 (m/s)²/(cyc/m) at the meridional wave number 2π/(200 km) and 7 × 105 (m/s)²/(cyc/m) at the temporal frequency 2π/(1 h).

The current situation with the cosmological model and fundamental constants is briefly reviewed. Here, we concentrate on evolutionary effects of large-scale structure formation, in particular, the relationship with the quasar distribution and dynamics is discussed. We argue that groups of bright quasars with few or more than dozen of members within regions ≤l LS∼(100–150)h −1 Mpc found atz<2 may belong to concentrations of young rich clusters of galaxies, and thus be distant Great Attractors like the local GA or the Shapley concentration. These early large-scale galactic structures (i) provide a natural way to ‘bias’ the distribution of Abell clusters, and (ii) suggest that the spectrum of primordial density perturbations is nearly flat on scales encompassing both the cluster and GAs,l=πk −1e(10,100)h −1 Mpc: Δ 2 ∼k 3 P(k) ∼k γ, γ=1 −0.4 +0.6 , whereP(k) is the power spectrum of density perturbations.

The matter bounce scenario is an alternative to inflation where scale-invariant perturbations are generated in a dust-dominated contracting space-time.In the context of loop quantum cosmology, the cosmological singularity is generically resolved and replaced by a bounce; furthermore, it is possible to deterministically evolve the perturbations from the contracting branch through the quantum bounce and calculate the form of the perturbations at the onset of the expanding branch.For the matter bounce scenario in loop quantum cosmology, scale-invariant perturbations and a small tensor-to-scalar ratio are predicted [1], in agreement with the latest observations of Planck and BICEP2 [2].

The scalar field theory of cosmological inflation constitutes nowadays one of the preferred scenarios for the physics of the early universe. In this paper we aim at studying the inflationary universe making use of a numerical lattice simulation. Various lattice codes have been written in the last decades and have been extensively used for understating the reheating phase of the universe, but they have never been used to study the inflationary phase itself far from the end of inflation (i.e. about 50 e-folds before the end of inflation). In this paper we use a lattice simulation to reproduce the well-known results of some simple models of single-field inflation, particularly for the scalar field perturbation. The main model that we consider is the standard slow-roll inflation with an harmonic potential for the inflaton field. We explore the technical aspects that need to be accounted for in order to reproduce with precision the nearly scale invariant power spectrum of inflaton perturbations. We also consider the case of a step potential, and show that the simulation is able to correctly reproduce the oscillatory features in the power spectrum of this model. Even if a lattice simulation is not needed in these cases, that are well within the regime of validity of linear perturbation theory, this sets the basis to future work on using lattice simulations to study more complicated models of inflation.

We propose a novel cosmological scenario, in which standard inflation is replaced by an expanding phase with a drastic violation of the Null Energy Condition (NEC): Ḣ >> H2. The model is based on the recently introduced Galileon theories, which allow NEC violating solutions without instabilities. The unperturbed solution describes a Universe that is asymptotically Minkowski in the past, expands with increasing energy density until it exits the regime of validity of the effective field theory and reheats. This solution is a dynamical attractor and the Universe is driven to it, even if it is initially contracting. The study of perturbations of the Galileon field reveals some subtleties, related to the gross violation of the NEC and it shows that adiabatic perturbations are cosmologically irrelevant. The model, however, suggests a new way to produce a scale invariant spectrum of isocurvature perturbations, which can later be converted to adiabatic: the Galileon is forced by symmetry to couple to the other fields as a dilaton; the effective metric it yields on the NEC violating solution is that of de Sitter space, so that all light scalars will automatically acquire a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of perturbations.

Low energy effective field theories motivated by string theory will likely contain several scalar moduli fields which will be relevant to early Universe cosmology. Some of these fields are expected to couple with non-standard kinetic terms to gravity. In this paper, we study the splitting into adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations for a model with two scalar fields, one of which has a non-standard kinetic term in the Einstein-frame action. Such actions can arise, e.g., in the Pre-Big-Bang and Ekpyrotic scenarios. The presence of a non-standard kinetic term induces a new coupling between adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations which is non-vanishing when the potential for the matter fields is nonzero. This coupling is un-suppressed in the long wavelength limit and thus can lead to an important transfer of power from the entropy to the adiabatic mode on super-Hubble scales. We apply the formalism to the case of a previously found exact solution with an exponential potential and study the resulting mixing of adiabatic and isocurvature fluctuations in this example. We also discuss the possible relevance of the extra coupling in the perturbation equations for the process of generating an adiabatic component of the fluctuations spectrum from isocurvature perturbations without considering a later decay of the isocurvature component.

The computation of the spectrum of primordial perturbations, generated by a scalar field during the super-inflationary phase of Loop Quantum Cosmology, is revisited. The calculation is performed for two different cases. The first considers the dynamics of a massless field and it is found that scale invariance can only be achieved under a severe fine tuning. The second assumes that the field evolves with a constant ratio between kinetic and potential energy, i.e. in a scaling solution. In this case, near scale invariance is a generic feature of the theory if the field rolls in a steep self interaction potential.

Cosmic microwave background tests of inflation

On the quasi-de sitter cosmological model of Starobinsky

We study adiabatic ~curvature! and entropy ~isocurvature! perturbations produced during a period of cosmological inflation that is driven by multiple scalar fields with an arbitrary interaction potential. A local rotation in field space is performed to separate out the adiabatic and entropy modes. The resulting field equations show explicitly how on large scales entropy perturbations can source adiabatic perturbations if the background solution follows a curved trajectory in field space, and how adiabatic perturbations cannot source entropy perturbations in the long-wavelength limit. It is the effective mass of the entropy field that determines the amplitude of entropy perturbations during inflation. We present two applications of the equations. First, we show why one in general expects the adiabatic and entropy perturbations to be correlated at the end of inflation, and calculate the cross correlation in the context of a double inflation model with two non-interacting fields. Second, we consider two-field preheating after inflation, examining conditions under which entropy perturbations can alter the large-scale curvature perturbation and showing how our new formalism has advantages in numerical stability when the background solution follows a non-trivial trajectory in field space.

Matter bounces refer to scenarios wherein the universe contracts at early times as in a matter dominated epoch until the scale factor reaches a minimum, after which it starts expanding. While such scenarios are known to lead to scale invariant spectra of primordial perturbations after the bounce, the challenge has been to construct completely symmetric bounces that lead to a tensor-to-scalar ratio which is small enough to be consistent with the recent cosmological data. In this work, we construct a model involving two scalar fields (a canonical field and a non-canonical ghost field) to drive the symmetric matter bounce and study the evolution of the scalar perturbations in the model. We find that the model can be completely described in terms of a single parameter, viz. the ratio of the scale associated with the bounce to the value of the scale factor at the bounce. We evolve the scalar perturbations numerically across the bounce and evaluate the scalar power spectra after the bounce. We show that, while the scalar and tensor perturbation spectra are scale invariant over scales of cosmological interest, the tensor-to-scalar ratio proves to be much smaller than the current upper bound from the observations of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies by the Planck mission. We also support our numerical analysis with analytical arguments.