Cosmic microwave background observables of small field models of inflation

We construct a class of single small field models of inflation that can predict, contrary to popular wisdom, an observable gravitational wave signal in the cosmic microwave background anisotropies. The spectral index, its running, the tensor to scalar ratio and the number of e-folds can cover all th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of cosmology and astroparticle physics Vol. 2010; no. 9; p. 007
Main Authors Ben-Dayan, Ido, Brustein, Ram
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States IOP Publishing 01.09.2010
Subjects
ANISOTROPY
ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
COSMOLOGY
COUPLING
FIELD THEORIES
GRAVITATIONAL WAVES
INFLATIONARY UNIVERSE
REFRACTIVE INDEX
RELICT RADIATION
SCALARS
SPACE
TENSORS
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Summary:We construct a class of single small field models of inflation that can predict, contrary to popular wisdom, an observable gravitational wave signal in the cosmic microwave background anisotropies. The spectral index, its running, the tensor to scalar ratio and the number of e-folds can cover all the parameter space currently allowed by cosmological observations. A unique feature of models in this class is their ability to predict a negative spectral index running in accordance with recent cosmic microwave background observations. We discuss the new class of models from an effective field theory perspective and show that if the dimensionless trilinear coupling is small, as required for consistency, then the observed spectral index running implies a high scale of inflation and hence an observable gravitational wave signal. All the models share a distinct prediction of higher power at smaller scales, making them easy targets for detection. Keywords->
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
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ISSN:1475-7516
1475-7516
DOI:10.1088/1475-7516/2010/09/007