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DOE OSTI · 22369801

Planck-suppressed operators

Assassi, Valentin·Baumann, Daniel·Green, Daniel·McAllister, Liam
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Abstract

We show that the recent Planck limits on primordial non-Gaussianity impose strong constraints on light hidden sector fields coupled to the inflaton via operators suppressed by a high mass scale Λ. We study a simple effective field theory in which a hidden sector field is coupled to a shift-symmetric inflaton via arbitrary operators up to dimension five. Self-interactions in the hidden sector lead to non-Gaussianity in the curvature perturbations. To be consistent with the Planck limit on local non-Gaussianity, the coupling to any hidden sector with light fields and natural cubic couplings must be suppressed by a very high scale Λ > 10{sup 5}H. Even if the hidden sector has Gaussian correlations, nonlinearities in the mixing with the inflaton still lead to non-Gaussian curvature perturbations. In this case, the non-Gaussianity is of the equilateral or orthogonal type, and the Planck data requires Λ > 10{sup 2}H.

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72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICSCORRELATIONSFIELD THEORIESINTERACTIONSLIMITING VALUESMASSNONLINEAR PROBLEMSSYMMETRY

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Assassi, Valentin, Baumann, Daniel, Green, Daniel, McAllister, Liam. 2014-01-01. Planck-suppressed operators. https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516%2F2014%2F01%2F033

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