Multifield inflation and differential geometry
Name
865476107-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
2.48 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
9ff8fd6043bfdfd4f78d01c2199028dc
Author(s)
Mazenc, Edward A
Advisor(s)
David I. Kaiser.
Date Issued
2013
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Cosmic inflation posits that the universe underwent a period of exponential expansion, driven by one or several quantum fields, shortly after the Big Bang. Renormalization requires the fields be non-minimally coupled to gravity. We examine such multifield models and find a rich geometric structure. After a conformal transformation of spacetime, the target field-space acquires non-trivial curvature. We explore two main consequences. First, we construct a field-space covariant framework to study quantum perturbations, extending prior work beyond the slow-roll approximation by working on the full phase space of the theory. Secondly, we show that a wide class of inflationary models can be understood as a geodesic motion on a suitably related manifold. Our geometric approach provides great insight into the (classical) field dynamics, and we have used them to compute non-gaussianities in the cosmic microwave background radiation spectrum.
Description
Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, 2013.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 63-67).
Subjects
Physics.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
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copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but
reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written
permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.
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