Engineering topics

Creminelli, Paolo

Publications and source records attributed to Creminelli, Paolo.

4 records

DOE OSTI2020

Asymptotic Behavior of Cosmologies with $$\Lambda >0$$ in $$2+1$$ Dimensions

We study, using mean curvature flow methods, 2+1 dimensional cosmologies with a positive cosmological constant and matter satisfying the dominant and the strong energy conditions. If the spatial slices are compact with non-positive Euler characteristic and are initially expanding everywhere, then we prove that the spatial slices reach infinite volume, asymptotically converge on average to de Sitter and they become, almost everywhere, physically indistinguishable from de Sitter. This holds true notwithstanding the presence of initial arbitrarily-large density fluctuations and the formation of black holes.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2018

Light Particles with Spin in Inflation

The existence of light particles with spin during inflation is prohibited by the Higuchi bound. This conclusion can be evaded if one considers states with a sizeable coupling with the inflaton foliation, since this breaks the de Sitter isometries. The action for these states can be constructed within the Effective Field Theory of Inflation, or using a CCWZ procedure. Light particles with spin have prescribed couplings with soft inflaton perturbations, which are encoded in consistency relations. Here we study the phenomenology of light states with spin 2. These mix with the graviton changing the tensor power spectrum and can lead to sizeable tensor non-Gaussianities. They also give rise to a scalar bispectrum and trispectrum with a characteristic angle-dependent non-Gaussianity.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2017

Simplifying the EFT of Inflation: generalized disformal transformations and redundant couplings

We study generalized disformal transformations, including derivatives of the metric, in the context of the Effective Field Theory of Inflation. All these transformations do not change the late-time cosmological observables but change the coefficients of the operators in the action: some couplings are effectively redundant. At leading order in derivatives and up to cubic order in perturbations, one has 6 free functions that can be used to set to zero 6 of the 17 operators at this order. This is used to show that the tensor three-point function cannot be modified at leading order in derivatives, while the scalar-tensor-tensor correlator can only be modified by changing the scalar dynamics. At higher order in derivatives there are transformations that do not affect the Einstein-Hilbert action: one can find 6 additional transformations that can be used to simplify the inflaton action, at least when the dynamics is dominated by the lowest derivative terms. We also identify the leading higher-derivative corrections to the tensor power spectrum and bispectrum.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2017

Solid consistency

We argue that isotropic scalar fluctuations in solid inflation are adiabatic in the super-horizon limit. During the solid phase this adiabatic mode has peculiar features: constant energy-density slices and comoving slices do not coincide, and their curvatures, parameterized respectively by ζ and R, both evolve in time. The existence of this adiabatic mode implies that Maldacena's squeezed limit consistency relation holds after angular average over the long mode. The correlation functions of a long-wavelength spherical scalar mode with several short scalar or tensor modes is fixed by the scaling behavior of the correlators of short modes, independently of the solid inflation action or dynamics of reheating.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗