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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 253 records · Page 14
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DOE OSTI2025

Robustness of inflation to kinetic inhomogeneities

We investigate the effects of large inhomogeneities in both the inflaton field and its momentum. We find that in general, large kinetic perturbations reduce the number of e-folds of inflation. In particular, we observe that inflationary models with sub-Planckian characteristic scales are not robust even to kinetic energy densities that are sub-dominant to the potential energy density, unless the initial field configuration is sufficiently far from the minimum. This strengthens the results of our previous work. In inflationary models with super-Planckian characteristic scales, despite a reduction in the number of e-folds, inflation is robust even when the potential energy density is initially sub-dominant. For the cases we study, the robustness of inflation strongly depends on whether the inflaton field is driven into the reheating phase by the inhomogeneous scalar dynamics.

gravity↗
DOE OSTI2018

First study of reionization in the Planck 2015 normalized closed ΛCDM inflation model

We study reionization in two non-flat ΛCDM inflation models that best fit the Planck 2015 cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy observations, ignoring or in conjunction with baryon acoustic oscillation distance measurements. We implement a principal component analysis (PCA) to estimate the uncertainties in the reionization history from a joint quasar–CMB data set. A thorough Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis is done over the parameter space of the PCA modes for both non-flat ΛCDM inflation models as well as the original Planck 2016 tilted, spatially flat ΛCDM inflation model. Although both flat and non-flat models can closely match the low-redshift ( z ≲ 6) observations, we notice a possible tension between high-redshift ( z ~ 8) Lyman α emitter data and the non-flat models. This is solely due to the fact that the closed models have a relatively higher reionization optical depth compared to the flat one, which in turn demands more high-redshift ionizing sources and favours an extended reionization starting as early as z ≈ 14. We conclude that as opposed to flat cosmology, for the non-flat cosmology models (i) the escape fraction needs steep redshift evolution and even unrealistically high values at some redshifts and (ii) most of the physical parameters require to have non-monotonic redshift evolution, especially apparent when Lyman α emitter data are included in the analysis.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Finding evidence for inflation and the origin of galactic magnetic fields with CMB surveys

The origin of the μG magnetic fields observed in galaxies is unknown. One promising scenario is that magnetic fields generated during inflation, larger than 0.1 nG on Mpc scales, were adiabatically compressed to μG strengths in galaxies during structure formation. Thus, detecting a scale-invariant primordial magnetic field (PMF) above 0.1 nG on Mpc scales just after recombination would indicate an inflationary origin of galactic magnetic fields. Furthermore, this would also provide compelling evidence that inflation occurred since only an inflationary mechanism could generate such a strong, scale-invariant magnetic field on Mpc scales. In contrast, constraining the scale-invariant PMF strength to be below 0.1 nG would imply an inflationary scenario is not the primary origin, since such weak PMFs cannot be amplified enough via adiabatic compression to produce the strength of the galactic fields we observe today. We find that measurements of anisotropic birefringence by future CMB surveys will be able to improve the sensitivity to Mpc-scale inflationary PMFs by an order of magnitude, and, in particular, that CMB-HD would lower the upper bound to 0.072 nG at the 95% C.L., which is below the critical 0.1 nG threshold for ruling out a purely inflationary origin. If inflationary PMFs exist, we find that a CMB-HD survey would be able to detect them with about 3σ significance or higher, providing evidence for inflation itself.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Preheating after multifield inflation with nonminimal couplings. I. Covariant formalism and attractor behavior

This is the first of a three-part series of papers, in which we study the preheating phase for multifield models of inflation involving nonminimal couplings. We study the single-field attractor behavior that these models exhibit during inflation and quantify its strength and parameter dependence. We further demonstrate that the strong single-field attractor behavior persists after the end of inflation. Preheating in such models therefore generically avoids the “dephasing” that typically affects multifield models with minimally coupled fields, allowing efficient transfer of energy from the oscillating inflaton condensate(s) to coupled perturbations across large portions of parameter space. We develop a doubly covariant formalism for studying the preheating phase in such models and identify several features specific to multifield models with nonminimal couplings, including effects that arise from the nontrivial field-space manifold. In papers II and III, we apply this formalism to study how the amplification of adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations varies with parameters, highlighting several distinct regimes depending on the magnitude of the nonminimal couplings ${{\xi}}_{I}$.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Building models of inflation in no-scale supergravity

After reviewing the motivations for cosmological inflation formulated in the formalism of supersymmetry, we argue that the appropriate framework is that of no-scale supergravity. We then show how to construct within this framework inflationary models whose predictions for the tilt in the spectrum of scalar perturbations, n s , and the ratio, r, of tensor and scalar perturbations coincide with those of the R+R 2 model of inflation proposed by Starobinsky. Here, a more detailed study of no-scale supergravity reveals a structure that is closely related to that of R 2 modifications of the minimal Einstein–Hilbert action for general relativity, opening avenues for constructing no-scale de Sitter and anti-de Sitter models by combining pairs of Minkowski models, as well as generalizations of the original no-scale Starobinsky models of inflation.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Generalised tensor fluctuations and inflation

Using an effective field theory approach to inflation, we examine novel properties of the spectrum of inflationary tensor fluctuations, that arise when breaking some of the symmetries or requirements usually imposed on the dynamics of perturbations. During single-clock inflation, time-reparameterization invariance is broken by a time-dependent cosmological background. In order to explore more general scenarios, we consider the possibility that spatial diffeomorphism invariance is also broken by effective mass terms or by derivative operators for the metric fluctuations in the Lagrangian. We investigate the cosmological consequences of the breaking of spatial diffeomorphisms, focussing on operators that affect the power spectrum of fluctuations. We identify the operators for tensor fluctuations that can provide a blue spectrum without violating the null energy condition, and operators for scalar fluctuations that lead to non-conservation of the comoving curvature perturbation on superhorizon scales even in single-clock inflation. In the last part of our work, we also examine the consequences of operators containing more than two spatial derivatives, discussing how they affect the sound speed of tensor fluctuations, and showing that they can mimic some of the interesting effects of symmetry breaking operators, even in scenarios that preserve spatial diffeomorphism invariance.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

The goldstone and goldstino of supersymmetric inflation

Here, we construct the minimal effective field theory (EFT) of supersymmetric inflation, whose field content is a real scalar, the goldstone for time-translation breaking, and a Weyl fermion, the goldstino for supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking. The inflating background can be viewed as a single SUSY-breaking sector, and the degrees of freedom can be efficiently parameterized using constrained superfields. Our EFT is comprised of a chiral superfield X NL containing the goldstino and satisfying X 2 NL = 0, and a real superfield B NL containing both the goldstino and the goldstone, satisfying X NL B NL = B 3 NL = 0. We match results from our EFT formalism to existing results for SUSY broken by a fluid background, showing that the goldstino propagates with subluminal velocities. The same effect can also be derived from the unitary gauge gravitino action after embedding our EFT in supergravity. If the gravitino mass is comparable to the Hubble scale during inflation, we identify a new parameter in the EFT related to a time-dependent phase of the gravitino mass parameter. We briefly comment on the leading contributions of goldstino loops to inflationary observables.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Clockwork axions in cosmology. Is chromonatural inflation chrononatural?

Many cosmological models rely on large couplings of axions to gauge fields. Examples include theories of magnetogenesis, inflation on a steep potential, chiral gravitational waves, and chromonatural inflation. Such theories require a mismatch between the axion field range and the mass scale appearing in the aFF~ coupling. This mismatch suggests an underlying monodromy, with the axion winding around its fundamental period a large number of times. We investigate the extent to which this integer can be explained as a product of smaller integers in a UV completion: in the parlance of our times, can the theory be “clockworked”? We argue that a clockwork construction producing a potential μ4cos(ajFa) for an axion of fundamental period Fa will obey the constraint μ < Fa. For a some applications, including chromonatural inflation with sub-Planckian field range, this constraint obstructs a clockwork UV completion. Alternative routes to a large coupling include fields of large charge (an approach limited by strong coupling) or kinetic mixing (requiring a lighter axion). Our results suggest that completions of axion cosmologies that explain the large parameter in the theory potentially alter the phenomenological predictions of the model.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

A relativistic gas of inflatons as an initial state for inflation

The possibility of the resilience of the beginning of inflation under unfavourable conditions is examined by considering the initial state of the inflaton field to be in the form of a relativistic gas with some of its properties in close proximity to the black body spectrum. It is demonstrated that the initial potential energy budget in such an environment is suppressed beyond the minimal value required for inflation. This is the extension of our earlier work, where we have shown that the rare regions which happen to host favourable initial conditions for the beginning of inflation could come to dominate the late-time Universe only if they started out from above the so-called self-reproduction threshold.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Universality class in conformal inflation

We develop a new class of chaotic inflation models with spontaneously broken conformal invariance. Observational consequences of a broad class of such models are stable with respect to strong deformations of the scalar potential. This universality is a critical phenomenon near the point of enhanced symmetry, SO(1,1), in case of conformal inflation. It appears because of the exponential stretching of the moduli space and the resulting exponential flattening of scalar potentials upon switching from the Jordan frame to the Einstein frame in this class of models. This result resembles stretching and flattening of inhomogeneities during inflationary expansion. It has a simple interpretation in terms of velocity versus rapidity near the Kähler cone in the moduli space, similar to the light cone of special theory of relativity. This effect makes inflation possible even in the models with very steep potentials. We describe conformal and superconformal versions of this cosmological attractor mechanism.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2013

Constraints on single-field inflation with WMAP, SPT and ACT data — a last-minute stand before Planck

We constrain models of single field inflation with the pre-Planck CMB data. The data used here is the 9-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) data, South Pole Telescope (SPT) data and Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) data. By adding in running of spectral index parameter, we find that the χ{sup 2} is improved by a factor of Δχ{sup 2} = 8.44, which strongly indicates the preference of this parameter from current data. In addition, we find that the running of spectral index α{sub s} does not change very much even if we switch to different pivot scales, which suggests that the power law expansion of power spectrum is accurate enough till the 1st order term. Furthermore, we find that the joint constraints on r−n{sub s} give very tight constraints on single-field inflation models, and the models with power law potential φ{sup p} can only survive if 0.9∼<p∼<2.1, so a large class of inflation models have already been ruled out before Planck data. Finally, we use the f{sub NL} data to constrain the non-trivial sound speed c{sub s}. We find that the current constraint is dominated by the power spectrum constraints which have some inconsistency with the constraints from f{sub NL}. This poses important questions of consistency between power spectrum and bispectrum of WMAP data.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Initial conditions and sampling for multifield inflation

We investigate the initial conditions problem for multifield inflation. In these scenarios the pre-inflationary dynamics can be chaotic, increasing the sensitivity of the onset of inflation to the initial data even in the homogeneous limit. To analyze physically equivalent scenarios we compare initial conditions at fixed energy. This ensures that each trajectory is counted once and only once, since the energy density decreases monotonically. We present a full analysis of hybrid inflation that reveals a greater degree of long range order in the set of ''successful'' initial conditions than was previously apparent. In addition, we explore the effective smoothing scale for the fractal set of successful initial conditions induced by the finite duration of the pre-inflationary phase. The role of the prior information used to specify the initial data is discussed in terms of Bayesian sampling.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

DBI Galileon in the effective field theory of inflation: orthogonal non-Gaussianities and constraints from the Trispectrum

Very few explicit inflationary scenarios are known to generate a large bispectrum of orthogonal shape. Dirac-Born-Infeld Galileon inflation, in which an induced gravity term is added to the DBI action, is one such model. We formulate it in the language of the effective field theory of inflation by identifying the unitary gauge operators that govern the behavior of its cosmological fluctuations. We show how to recover rather easily from this its power spectrum and bispectrum, which we calculated previously using standard cosmological perturbation theory. We push our calculations up to the determination of the fourth-order action and of the trispectrum, in which shapes absent in k-inflation arise due to the presence of higher-order derivative operators. We finally discuss the combined constraints set on this model by current observational bounds on the bispectrum and trispectrum.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

On squeezed limits in single-field inflation. Part I

The n-point correlation functions in single-field inflation obey a set of consistency conditions in the exact squeezed limit which are not present in multi-field models, and thus are powerful tools to distinguish between the two. However, these consistency conditions may be violated for a finite range of scales in single-field models, for example by departures from the Bunch-Davies state. These excited states may be the consequence of interactions during inflation, or may be a remnant of the era that preceded inflation. In this paper we analyze the bispectrum, and show that in the regime of theoretical control the resulting signal in the squeezed limit remains undetectably small in all known models which continuously excite the state. We also show that the signal remains undetectably small if the initial state is related to the Bunch-Davies state by a Bogoliubov transformation and the energy density in the state is small enough so that the usual slow-roll conditions are obeyed. Bogoliubov states that lead to violations of the slow-roll conditions, as well as more general excited states, require more careful treatment and will be discussed in a separate publication.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Affleck-Dine baryogenesis and inflation in supergravity with strongly stabilized moduli

Constructing models of inflation and/or baryogenesis in the context of N = 1 supergravity is known to be difficult as the finite energy density during inflation typically generates large (order the Hubble scale) mass terms. This is the well-known η problem in inflation. The same effect gives masses along low energy flat directions of the scalar potential thus potentially preventing Affleck-Dine baryogenesis to occur. It has been shown that adding a chiral multiplet S coupled to the inflaton (with a shift symmetry) can serve to stabilize the inflationary potential and allows one to derive simple inflationary potentials without an η problem. Here, we show that by coupling the same stabilizing field S to the flat direction, may naturally lead to a negative mass-squared contribution to the flat direction thus generating the necessarily large vacuum expectation value needed to realize Affleck-Dine baryogenesis. We trace the evolution of the inflaton, stabilizer, and flat direction field, as well as a Polonyi-like modulus responsible for soft supersymmetry breaking.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Solid inflation

We develop a cosmological model where primordial inflation is driven by a 'solid', defined as a system of three derivatively coupled scalar fields obeying certain symmetries and spontaneously breaking a certain subgroup of these. The symmetry breaking pattern differs drastically from that of standard inflationary models: time translations are unbroken. This prevents our model from fitting into the standard effective field theory description of adiabatic perturbations, with crucial consequences for the dynamics of cosmological perturbations. Most notably, non-gaussianities in the curvature perturbations are unusually large, with f{sub NL} ∼ 1/(εc{sub s}{sup 2}), and have a novel shape: peaked in the squeezed limit, with anisotropic dependence on how the limit is approached. Other unusual features include the absence of adiabatic fluctuation modes during inflation — which does not impair their presence and near scale-invariance after inflation — and a slightly blue tilt for the tensor modes.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Cosmic inflation in a landscape of heavy-fields

Heavy isocurvature fields may have a strong influence on the low energy dynamics of curvature perturbations during inflation, as long as the inflationary trajectory becomes non-geodesic in the multi-field target space (the landscape). If fields orthogonal to the inflationary trajectory are sufficiently heavy, one expects a reliable effective field theory describing the low energy dynamics of curvature perturbations, with self-interactions determined by the shape of the inflationary trajectory. Previous work analyzing the role of heavy-fields during inflation have mostly focused in the effects on curvature perturbations due to a single heavy-field. In this article we extend the results of these works by studying models of inflation in which curvature perturbations interact with two heavy-fields. We show that the second heavy-field (orthogonal to both tangent and normal directions of the inflationary trajectory) may significantly affect the evolution of curvature modes. We compute the effective field theory for the low energy curvature perturbations obtained by integrating out the two heavy-fields and show that the presence of the second heavy-field implies the existence of additional self-interactions not accounted for in the single heavy-field case. We conclude that future observations will be able to constrain the number of heavy fields interacting with curvature perturbations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

SUGRA new inflation with Heisenberg symmetry

We propose a realisation of ''new inflation'' in supergravity (SUGRA), where the flatness of the inflaton potential is protected by a Heisenberg symmetry. Inflation can be associated with a particle physics phase transition, with the inflaton being a (D-flat) direction of Higgs fields which break some symmetry at high energies, e.g. of GUT Higgs fields or of Higgs fields for flavour symmetry breaking. This is possible since compared to a shift symmetry, which is usually used to protect a flat inflaton potential, the Heisenberg symmetry is compatible with a (gauge) non-singlet inflaton field. In contrast to conventional new inflation models in SUGRA, where the predictions depend on unknown parameters of the Kaehler potential, the model with Heisenberg symmetry makes discrete predictions for the primordial perturbation parameters which depend only on the order n at which the inflaton appears in the effective superpotential. The predictions for the spectral index n{sub s} can be close to the best-fit value of the latest Planck 2013 results.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗