Inflation over the hill

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

11 pages, 1 figure (V3: Version accepted by PRD, title changed by journal)

Scientific paper

10.1103/PhysRevD.75.123510

We calculate the power spectrum of curvature perturbations when the inflaton field is rolling over the top of a local maximum of a potential. We show that the evolution of the field can be decomposed into a late-time attractor, which is identified as the slow roll solution, plus a rapidly decaying non-slow roll solution, corresponding to the field rolling ``up the hill'' to the maximum of the potential. The exponentially decaying transient solution can map to an observationally relevant range of scales because the universe is also expanding exponentially. We consider the two branches separately and we find that they are related through a simple transformation of the slow roll parameter $\eta$ and they predict identical power spectra. We generalize this approach to the case where the inflaton field is described by both branches simultaneously and find that the mode equation can be solved exactly at all times. Even though the slow roll parameter $\eta$ is evolving rapidly during the transition from the transient solution to the late-time attractor solution, the resultant power spectrum is an exact power-law spectrum. Such solutions may be useful for model-building on the string landscape.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Inflation over the hill does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Inflation over the hill, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Inflation over the hill will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-187975

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.