Engineering topics

Sriramkumar, L

Publications and source records attributed to Sriramkumar, L.

3 records

DOE OSTI2011

Modified dispersion relations and the response of the rotating Unruh-DeWitt detector

We study the response of a rotating monopole detector that is coupled to a massless scalar field which is described by a nonlinear dispersion relation in flat spacetime. Since it does not seem to be possible to evaluate the response of the rotating detector analytically, we resort to numerical computations. Interestingly, unlike the case of the uniformly accelerated detector that has been considered recently, we find that defining the transition probability rate of the rotating detector poses no difficulties. Further, we show that the response of the rotating detector can be computed exactly (albeit, numerically) even when it is coupled to a field that is governed by a nonlinear dispersion relation. We also discuss the response of the rotating detector in the presence of a cylindrical boundary on which the scalar field is constrained to vanish. While superluminal dispersion relations hardly affect the standard results, we find that subluminal dispersion relations can lead to relatively large modifications.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2010

Tensor-to-scalar ratio in punctuated inflation

Recently, we have shown that scalar spectra with lower power on large scales and certain other features naturally occur in punctuated inflation, i.e. the scenario wherein a brief period of rapid roll is sandwiched between two stages of slow roll inflation. Such spectra gain importance due to the fact that they can lead to a better fit of the observed CMB anisotropies, when compared to the conventional, featureless, power law spectrum. In this paper, with examples from the canonical scalar field as well as the tachyonic models, we illustrate that, in punctuated inflation, a drop in the scalar power on large scales is always accompanied by a rise in the tensor power and, hence, an even more pronounced increase in the tensor-to-scalar ratio r on these scales. Interestingly, we find that r actually exceeds well beyond unity over a small range of scales. To our knowledge, this work presents for the first time, examples of single scalar field inflationary models wherein r>>1. This feature opens up interesting possibilities. For instance, we show that the rise in r on large scales translates to a rapid increase in the angular power spectrum, C{sub l}{sup BB}, of the B-mode polarization of the CMB at the low multipoles. We discuss the observational implications of these results.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2010

A note on perfect scalar fields

We derive a condition on the Lagrangian density describing a generic, single, noncanonical scalar field, by demanding that the intrinsic, nonadiabatic pressure perturbation associated with the scalar field vanishes identically. Based on the analogy with perfect fluids, we refer to such fields as perfect scalar fields. It is common knowledge that models that depend only on the kinetic energy of the scalar field (often referred to as pure kinetic models) possess no nonadiabatic pressure perturbation. While we are able to construct models that seemingly depend on the scalar field and also do not contain any nonadiabatic pressure perturbation, we find that all such models that we construct allow a redefinition of the field under which they reduce to pure kinetic models. We show that, if a perfect scalar field drives inflation, then, in such situations, the first slow roll parameter will always be a monotonically decreasing function of time. We point out that this behavior implies that these scalar fields cannot lead to features in the inflationary, scalar perturbation spectrum.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗