Résumé / Abstract Journal-club_GReCO

Séminaire / Seminar GReCO

« A Statistical approach to multifield inflation: many-field perturbations beyond slow roll »

Sébastien Renaux-Petel
Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris (Paris, France)

We study multifield contributions to the scalar power spectrum in an ensemble of six-field inflationary models obtained in string theory. We identify examples in which inflation occurs by chance, near an approximate inflection point, and we compute the primordial perturbations numerically, both exactly and using an array of truncated models. The scalar mass spectrum and the number of fluctuating fields are accurately described by a simple random matrix model. During the approach to the inflection point, bending trajectories and violations of slow roll are commonplace, and 'many-field' effects, in which three or more fields influence the perturbations, are often important. However, in a large fraction of models consistent with constraints on the tilt, the signatures of multifield evolution occur on unobservably large scales. Our scenario is a concrete microphysical realization of quasi-single-field inflation, with scalar masses of order the Hubble parameter, but the cubic and quartic couplings are typically too small to produce detectable non-Gaussianity. We argue that our results are characteristic of a broader class of models arising from multifield potentials that are natural in the Wilsonian sense.
lundi 13 mai 2013 - 11:00
Salle des séminaires François Arago
Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
Pages web du séminaire / Seminar's webpage