Nonminimal Couplings in the Early Universe: Multifield Models of Inflation and the Latest Observations
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Author(s)
Kaiser, David I.
Date Issued
2016
Journal
At the Frontier of Spacetime: Scalar-Tensor Theory, Bells Inequality, Machs Principle, Exotic Smoothness
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Citation
Kaiser, David I. "Nonminimal Couplings in the Early Universe: Multifield Models of Inflation and the Latest Observations." At The Frontier of Spacetime: Scalar-Tensor Theory, Bells Inequality, Machs Principle, Exotic Smoothness. Ed. Torsten Asselmeyer-Maluga. Switzerland: Springer, 2016. pp. 41-59.
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Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Models of cosmic inflation suggest that our universe underwent an early
phase of accelerated expansion, driven by the dynamics of one or more scalar fields. Inflationary models make specific, quantitative predictions for several observable quantities, including particular patterns of temperature anistropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation. Realistic models of high-energy physics include many scalar fields at high energies. Moreover, we may expect these fields to have nonminimal couplings to the spacetime curvature. Such couplings are quite generic, arising as renormalization counterterms when quantizing scalar fields in
curved spacetime. In this chapter I review recent research on a general class of multifield inflationary models with nonminimal couplings. Models in this class exhibit a strong attractor behavior: across a wide range of couplings and initial conditions, the fields evolve along a single-field trajectory for most of inflation. Across large regions of phase space and parameter space, therefore, models in this general class yield robust predictions for observable quantities that fall squarely within the “sweet
spot” of recent observations.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Theoretical Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Science, Technology and Society
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DOI of Published Version
http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319312972
