We study inflation with anisotropic hair induced by form fields. In four dimensions, the relevant form fields are gauge (one-form) fields and two-form fields. Assuming the exponential form of potential and gauge kinetic functions, we find new exact power-law solutions endowed with anisotropic hair. We also explore the phase space of anisotropic inflation and find fixed points corresponding to the exact power-law solutions. Moreover, we perform the stability analysis around the fixed points to reveal the structure of the phase space. It turns out that one of the fixed points becomes an attractor and others (if any) are saddle points. In particular, the one corresponding to anisotropic inflation becomes an attractor when it exists. We also argue that various anisotropic inflation models can be designed by choosing coupling constants.
It is widely believed that anisotropy in the expansion of the universe will decay exponentially fast during inflation. This is often referred to as the cosmic no-hair conjecture. However, we find a counter example to the cosmic no-hair conjecture in the context of supergravity. As a demonstration, we present an exact anisotropic power-law inflationary solution which is an attractor in the phase space. We emphasize that anisotropic inflation is quite generic in the presence of anisotropic sources which couple with an inflaton.
We study the dynamics of $SU(2)_L$ times $U(1)_Y$ electroweak gauge fields during and after Higgs inflation. In particular, we investigate configurations of the gauge fields during inflation and find the gauge fields remain topologically non-trivial. We also find that the gauge fields grow due to parametric resonances caused by oscillations of a Higgs field after inflation. We show that the Chern-Simons number also grows significantly. Interestingly, the parametric amplification gives rise to sizable magnetic fields after the inflation whose final amplitudes depend on the anisotropy survived during inflation.
It is known that power-law k-inflation can be realized for the Lagrangian $P=Xg(Y)$, where $X=-(partial phi)^2/2$ is the kinetic energy of a scalar field $phi$ and $g$ is an arbitrary function in terms of $Y=Xe^{lambda phi/M_{pl}}$ ($lambda$ is a constant and $M_{pl}$ is the reduced Planck mass). In the presence of a vector field coupled to the inflaton with an exponential coupling $f(phi) propto e^{mu phi/M_{pl}}$, we show that the models with the Lagrangian $P=Xg(Y)$ generally give rise to anisotropic inflationary solutions with $Sigma/H=constant$, where $Sigma$ is an anisotropic shear and $H$ is an isotropic expansion rate. Provided these anisotropic solutions exist in the regime where the ratio $Sigma/H$ is much smaller than 1, they are stable attractors irrespective of the forms of $g(Y)$. We apply our results to concrete models of k-inflation such as the generalized dilatonic ghost condensate/the DBI model and we numerically show that the solutions with different initial conditions converge to the anisotropic power-law inflationary attractors. Even in the de Sitter limit ($lambda to 0$) such solutions can exist, but in this case the null energy condition is generally violated. The latter property is consistent with the Walds cosmic conjecture stating that the anisotropic hair does not survive on the de Sitter background in the presence of matter respecting the dominant/strong energy conditions.
We study observational signatures of two classes of anisotropic inflationary models in which an inflaton field couples to (i) a vector kinetic term F_{mu nu}F^{mu nu} and (ii) a two-form kinetic term H_{mu nu lambda}H^{mu nu lambda}. We compute the corrections from the anisotropic sources to the power spectrum of gravitational waves as well as the two-point cross correlation between scalar and tensor perturbations. The signs of the anisotropic parameter g_* are different depending on the vector and the two-form models, but the statistical anisotropies generally lead to a suppressed tensor-to-scalar ratio r and a smaller scalar spectral index n_s in both models. In the light of the recent Planck bounds of n_s and r, we place observational constraints on several different inflaton potentials such as those in chaotic and natural inflation in the presence of anisotropic interactions. In the two-form model we also find that there is no cross correlation between scalar and tensor perturbations, while in the vector model the cross correlation does not vanish. The non-linear estimator f_{NL} of scalar non-Gaussianities in the two-form model is generally smaller than that in the vector model for the same orders of |g_*|, so that the former is easier to be compatible with observational bounds of non-Gaussianities than the latter.
We study an inflationary scenario with a two-form field to which an inflaton couples non-trivially. First, we show that anisotropic inflation can be realized as an attractor solution and that the two-form hair remains during inflation. A statistical anisotropy can be developed because of a cumulative anisotropic interaction induced by the background two-form field. The power spectrum of curvature perturbations has a prolate-type anisotropy, in contrast to the vector models having an oblate-type anisotropy. We also evaluate the bispectrum and trispectrum of curvature perturbations by employing the in-in formalism based on the interacting Hamiltonians. We find that the non-linear estimators $f_{NL}$ and $tau_{NL}$ are correlated with the amplitude $g_*$ of the statistical anisotropy in the power spectrum. Unlike the vector models, both $f_{NL}$ and $tau_{NL}$ vanish in the squeezed limit. However, the estimator $f_{NL}$ can reach the order of 10 in the equilateral and enfolded limits. These results are consistent with the latest bounds on $f_{NL}$ constrained by Planck.
We study the cosmic no-hair in the presence of spin-2 matter, i.e. in bimetric gravity. We obtain stable de Sitter solutions with the cosmological constant in the physical sector and find an evidence that the cosmic no-hair is correct. In the presence of the other cosmological constant, there are two branches of de Sitter solutions. Under anisotropic perturbations, one of them is always stable and there is no violation of the cosmic no-hair at the linear level. The stability of the other branch depends on parameters and the cosmic no-hair can be violated in general. Remarkably, the bifurcation point of two branches exactly coincides with the Higuchi bound. It turns out that there exists a de Sitter solution for which the cosmic no-hair holds at the linear level and the effective mass for the anisotropic perturbations is above the Higuchi bound.
We study ghosts in multimetric gravity by combining the mini-superspace and the Hamiltonian constraint analysis. We first revisit bimetric gravity and explain why it is ghost-free. Then, we apply our method to trimetric gravity and clarify when the model contains a ghost. More precisely, we prove trimetric gravity generically contains a ghost. However, if we cut the interaction of a pair of metrics, trimetric gravity becomes ghost-free. We further extend the Hamiltonian analysis to general multimetric gravity and calculate the number of ghosts in various models. Thus, we find multimetric gravity with loop type interactions never becomes ghost-free.
We present a new mechanism for generating primordial statistical anisotropy of curvature perturbations. We introduce a vector field which has a non-minimal kinetic term and couples with a waterfall field in hybrid inflation model. In such a system, the vector field gives fluctuations of the end of inflation and hence induces a subcomponent of curvature perturbations. Since the vector has a preferred direction, the statistical anisotropy could appear in the fluctuations. We present the explicit formula for the statistical anisotropy in the primordial power spectrum and the bispectrum of curvature perturbations. Interestingly, there is the possibility that the statistical anisotropy does not appear in the power spectrum but does appear in the bispectrum. We also find that the statistical anisotropy provides the shape dependence to the bispectrum.
