We examine the effect of the thermal vacuum on the power spectrum of inflation by using the thermal field dynamics. We find that the thermal effect influences the CMB anisotropy at large length scale. After removing the divergence by using the holographic cutoff, we observe that the thermal vacuum explains well the observational CMB result at low multipoles. This shows that the temperature dependent factor should be considered in the study of power spectrum in inflation, especially at large length scale.
We perform adiabatic regularization of power spectrum in nonminimally coupled general single-field inflation with varying speed of sound. The subtraction is performed within the framework of earlier study by Urakawa and Starobinsky dealing with the canonical inflation. Inspired by Fakir and Unruhs model on nonminimally coupled chaotic inflation, we find upon imposing near scale-invariant condition, that the subtraction term exponentially decays with the number of $ e $-folds. As in the result for the canonical inflation, the regularized power spectrum tends to the bare power spectrum as the Universe expands during (and even after) inflation. This work justifies the use of the bare power spectrum in standard calculation in the most general context of slow-roll single-field inflation involving non-minimal coupling and varying speed of sound.
We look at the question posed by Parker et al. about the effect of UV regularisation on the power spectrum for inflation. Focusing on the slow-roll $k$-inflation, we show that up to second order in the Hubble and sound flow parameters, the adiabatic regularisation of such model leads to no difference in the power spectrum apart from certain cases that violate near scale invariant power spectra. Furthermore, extending to non-minimal $k$-inflation, we establish the equivalence of the subtraction terms in the adiabatic regularisation of the power spectrum in Jordan and Einstein frames.
In this paper we investigate the cosmological dynamics of geometric inflation by means of the tools of the dynamical systems theory. We focus in the study of two explicit models where it is possible to sum the infinite series of higher curvature corrections that arises in the formalism. These would be very interesting possibilities since, if regard gravity as a quantum effective theory, a key feature is that higher powers of the curvature invariants are involved at higher loops. Hence, naively, consideration of the whole infinite tower of curvature invariants amounts to consideration of all of the higher order loops. The global dynamics of these toy models in the phase space is discussed and the quantum origin of primordial inflation is exposed.
We investigate the scalar and the tensor perturbations of the $varphi^2$ inflation model in the strong-gravity limit of Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld (EiBI) theory. In order to consider the strong EiBI-gravity effect, we take the value of $kappa$ large, where $kappa$ is the EiBI theory parameter. The energy density of the Universe at the early stage is very high, and the Universe is in a strong-gravity regime. Therefore, the perturbation feature is not altered from what was investigated earlier. At the attractor inflationary stage, however, the feature is changed in the strong EiBI-gravity limit. The correction to the scalar perturbation in this limit comes mainly via the background matter field, while that to the tensor perturbation comes directly from the gravity ($kappa$) effect. The change in the value of the scalar spectrum is little compared with that in the weak EiBI-gravity limit, or in GR. The form of the tensor spectrum is the same with that in the weak limit, but the value of the spectrum can be suppressed down to zero in the strong limit. Therefore, the resulting tensor-to-scalar ratio can also be suppressed in the same way, which makes $varphi^2$ model in EiBI theory viable.
The primordial power spectra of scalar and tensor perturbations during slow-roll inflation are usually calculated with the method of Bessel function approximation. For constant-roll or ultra slow-roll inflation, the method of Bessel function approximation may be invalid. We compare the numerical results with the analytical results derived from the Bessel function approximation, and we find that they differ significantly on super-horizon scales if the constant slow-roll parameter $eta_H$ is not small. More accurate method is needed for calculating the primordial power spectrum for constant-roll inflation.