No Arabic abstract
We study inflationary perturbations in multiple-field models, for which zeta typically evolves until all isocurvature modes decay--the adiabatic limit. We use numerical methods to explore the sensitivity of the nonlinear parameter fNL to the process by which this limit is achieved, finding an appreciable dependence on model-specific data such as the time at which slow-roll breaks down or the timescale of reheating. In models with a sum-separable potential where the isocurvature modes decay before the end of the slow-roll phase we give an analytic criterion for the asymptotic value of fNL to be large. Other examples can be constructed using a waterfall field to terminate inflation while fNL is transiently large, caused by descent from a ridge or convergence into a valley. We show that these two types of evolution are distinguished by the sign of the bispectrum, and give approximate expressions for the peak fNL.
Non-adiabatic pressure perturbations naturally occur in models of inflation consisting of more than one scalar field. The amount of non-adiabatic pressure present at the end of inflation can have observational consequences through changes in the curvature perturbation, the generation of vorticity and subsequently the sourcing of B-mode polarisation. In this work, based on a presentation at the 13th Marcel Grossmann Meeting, we give a very brief overview of non-adiabatic pressure perturbations in multi-field inflationary models and describe our recent calculation of the spectrum of isocurvature perturbations generated at the end of inflation for different models which have two scalar fields.
Isocurvature perturbations naturally occur in models of inflation consisting of more than one scalar field. In this paper we calculate the spectrum of isocurvature perturbations generated at the end of inflation for three different inflationary models consisting of two canonical scalar fields. The amount of non-adiabatic pressure present at the end of inflation can have observational consequences through the generation of vorticity and subsequently the sourcing of B-mode polarisation. We compare two different definitions of isocurvature perturbations and show how these quantities evolve in different ways during inflation. Our results are calculated using the open source Pyflation numerical package which is available to download.
We use the Constitution supernova, the baryon acoustic oscillation, the cosmic microwave background, and the Hubble parameter data to analyze the evolution property of dark energy. We obtain different results when we fit different baryon acoustic oscillation data combined with the Constitution supernova data to the Chevallier-Polarski-Linder model. We find that the difference stems from the different values of $Omega_{m0}$. We also fit the observational data to the model independent piecewise constant parametrization. Four redshift bins with boundaries at $z=0.22$, 0.53, 0.85 and 1.8 were chosen for the piecewise constant parametrization of the equation of state parameter $w(z)$ of dark energy. We find no significant evidence for evolving $w(z)$. With the addition of the Hubble parameter, the constraint on the equation of state parameter at high redshift isimproved by 70%. The marginalization of the nuisance parameter connected to the supernova distance modulus is discussed.
The aim of this thesis is to question some of the basic assumptions that go into building the $Lambda$CDM model of our universe. The assumptions we focus on are the initial conditions of the universe, the fundamental forces in the universe on large scales and the approximations made in analysing cosmological data. For each of the assumptions we outline the theoretical understanding behind them, the current methods used to study them and how they can be improved and finally we also perform numerical analysis to quantify the novel solutions/methods we propose to extend the previous assumptions.
We study the evolution of non-Gaussianity in multiple-field inflationary models, focusing on three fundamental questions: (a) How is the sign and peak magnitude of the non-linearity parameter fNL related to generic features in the inflationary potential? (b) How sensitive is fNL to the process by which an adiabatic limit is reached, where the curvature perturbation becomes conserved? (c) For a given model, what is the appropriate tool -- analytic or numerical -- to calculate fNL at the adiabatic limit? We summarise recent results obtained by the authors and further elucidate them by considering an inflection point model.