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At least 343 records · Page 19
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2019

Symmetry breaking and reheating after inflation in no-scale flipped SU(5)

No-scale supergravity and the flipped SU(5)×U(1) gauge group provide an ambitious prototype string-inspired scenario for physics below the string scale, which can accommodate the Starobinsky-like inflation favoured by observation when the inflaton is associated with one of the singlet fields associated with neutrino mass generation. During inflation, the vacuum remains in the unbroken GUT phase, and GUT symmetry breaking occurs later when a field with a flat direction (the flaton) acquires a vacuum expectation value. Inflaton decay and the reheating process depend crucially on GUT symmetry breaking, as decay channels open and close, depending on the value of the flaton vacuum expectation value. Here, we consider the simultaneous cosmological evolution of both the inflaton and flaton fields after inflation. We distinguish weak, moderate and strong reheating regimes, and calculate in each case the entropy produced as all fields settle to their global minima. These three reheating scenarios differ in the value of a Yukawa coupling that introduces mass mixing between the singlets and the 10s of SU(5). Here, the dynamics of the GUT transition has an important impact on the production of gravitinos, and we also discuss the pattern of neutrino masses we expect in each of the three cases. Finally, we use recent CMB limits on neutrino masses to constrain the reheating models, finding that neutrino masses and the cosmological baryon asymmetry can both be explained if the reheating is strong.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Opening the reheating box in multifield inflation

The robustness of multi-field inflation to the physics of reheating is investigated. In order to carry out this study, reheating is described in detail by means of a formalism which tracks the evolution of scalar fields and perfect fluids in interaction (the inflatons and their decay products). This framework is then used to establish the general equations of motion of the background and perturbative quantities controlling the evolution of the system during reheating. Next, these equations are solved exactly by means of a new numerical code. Moreover, new analytical techniques, allowing us to interpret and approximate these solutions, are developed. As an illustration of a physical prediction that could be affected by the micro-physics of reheating, the amplitude of non-adiabatic perturbations in double inflation is considered. It is found that ignoring the fine-structure of reheating, as usually done in the standard approach, can lead to differences as big as ~ 50%, while our semi-analytic estimates can reduce this error to ~ 10%. Finally, we conclude that, in multi-field inflation, tracking the perturbations through the details of the reheating process is important and, to achieve good precision, requires the use of numerical calculations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

${\tt Warm}$SPy: a numerical study of cosmological perturbations in warm inflation

We present ${\tt Warm}$SPy, a numerical code in Python designed to solve for the perturbations' equations in warm inflation models and compute the corresponding scalar power spectrum at CMB horizon crossing. In models of warm inflation, a radiation bath of temperature T during inflation induces a dissipation (friction) rate of strength Q ∝ T c /Φ m in the equation of motion for the inflaton field Φ. While for a temperature-independent dissipation rate (c = 0) an analytic expression for the scalar power spectrum exists, in the case of a non-zero value for c the set of equations can only be solved numerically. For c > 0 (c < 0), the coupling between the perturbations in the inflaton field and radiation induces a growing (decaying) mode in the scalar perturbations, generally parameterized by a multiplicative function G(Q) which we refer to as the scalar dissipation function. Using ${\tt Warm}$SPy, we provide an analytic fit for G(Q) for the cases of c = {3,1,-1}, corresponding to three cases that have been realized in physical models. Compared to previous literature results, our fits are more robust and valid over a broader range of dissipation strengths Q ϵ [10 -7 ,10 4 ]. Additionally, for the first time, we numerically assess the stability of the scalar dissipation function against various model parameters, inflationary histories as well as the effects of metric perturbations. As a whole, the results do not depend appreciably on most of the parameters in the analysis, except for the dissipation index c, providing evidence for the universal behaviour of the scalar dissipation function G(Q).

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Robustness of inflation to kinetic inhomogeneities

We investigate the effects of large inhomogeneities in both the inflaton field and its momentum. We find that in general, large kinetic perturbations reduce the number of e-folds of inflation. In particular, we observe that inflationary models with sub-Planckian characteristic scales are not robust even to kinetic energy densities that are sub-dominant to the potential energy density, unless the initial field configuration is sufficiently far from the minimum. This strengthens the results of our previous work. In inflationary models with super-Planckian characteristic scales, despite a reduction in the number of e-folds, inflation is robust even when the potential energy density is initially sub-dominant. For the cases we study, the robustness of inflation strongly depends on whether the inflaton field is driven into the reheating phase by the inhomogeneous scalar dynamics.

gravity↗
DOE OSTI2018

First study of reionization in the Planck 2015 normalized closed ΛCDM inflation model

We study reionization in two non-flat ΛCDM inflation models that best fit the Planck 2015 cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy observations, ignoring or in conjunction with baryon acoustic oscillation distance measurements. We implement a principal component analysis (PCA) to estimate the uncertainties in the reionization history from a joint quasar–CMB data set. A thorough Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis is done over the parameter space of the PCA modes for both non-flat ΛCDM inflation models as well as the original Planck 2016 tilted, spatially flat ΛCDM inflation model. Although both flat and non-flat models can closely match the low-redshift ( z ≲ 6) observations, we notice a possible tension between high-redshift ( z ~ 8) Lyman α emitter data and the non-flat models. This is solely due to the fact that the closed models have a relatively higher reionization optical depth compared to the flat one, which in turn demands more high-redshift ionizing sources and favours an extended reionization starting as early as z ≈ 14. We conclude that as opposed to flat cosmology, for the non-flat cosmology models (i) the escape fraction needs steep redshift evolution and even unrealistically high values at some redshifts and (ii) most of the physical parameters require to have non-monotonic redshift evolution, especially apparent when Lyman α emitter data are included in the analysis.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Finding evidence for inflation and the origin of galactic magnetic fields with CMB surveys

The origin of the μG magnetic fields observed in galaxies is unknown. One promising scenario is that magnetic fields generated during inflation, larger than 0.1 nG on Mpc scales, were adiabatically compressed to μG strengths in galaxies during structure formation. Thus, detecting a scale-invariant primordial magnetic field (PMF) above 0.1 nG on Mpc scales just after recombination would indicate an inflationary origin of galactic magnetic fields. Furthermore, this would also provide compelling evidence that inflation occurred since only an inflationary mechanism could generate such a strong, scale-invariant magnetic field on Mpc scales. In contrast, constraining the scale-invariant PMF strength to be below 0.1 nG would imply an inflationary scenario is not the primary origin, since such weak PMFs cannot be amplified enough via adiabatic compression to produce the strength of the galactic fields we observe today. We find that measurements of anisotropic birefringence by future CMB surveys will be able to improve the sensitivity to Mpc-scale inflationary PMFs by an order of magnitude, and, in particular, that CMB-HD would lower the upper bound to 0.072 nG at the 95% C.L., which is below the critical 0.1 nG threshold for ruling out a purely inflationary origin. If inflationary PMFs exist, we find that a CMB-HD survey would be able to detect them with about 3σ significance or higher, providing evidence for inflation itself.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Preheating after multifield inflation with nonminimal couplings. I. Covariant formalism and attractor behavior

This is the first of a three-part series of papers, in which we study the preheating phase for multifield models of inflation involving nonminimal couplings. We study the single-field attractor behavior that these models exhibit during inflation and quantify its strength and parameter dependence. We further demonstrate that the strong single-field attractor behavior persists after the end of inflation. Preheating in such models therefore generically avoids the “dephasing” that typically affects multifield models with minimally coupled fields, allowing efficient transfer of energy from the oscillating inflaton condensate(s) to coupled perturbations across large portions of parameter space. We develop a doubly covariant formalism for studying the preheating phase in such models and identify several features specific to multifield models with nonminimal couplings, including effects that arise from the nontrivial field-space manifold. In papers II and III, we apply this formalism to study how the amplification of adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations varies with parameters, highlighting several distinct regimes depending on the magnitude of the nonminimal couplings ${{\xi}}_{I}$.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Building models of inflation in no-scale supergravity

After reviewing the motivations for cosmological inflation formulated in the formalism of supersymmetry, we argue that the appropriate framework is that of no-scale supergravity. We then show how to construct within this framework inflationary models whose predictions for the tilt in the spectrum of scalar perturbations, n s , and the ratio, r, of tensor and scalar perturbations coincide with those of the R+R 2 model of inflation proposed by Starobinsky. Here, a more detailed study of no-scale supergravity reveals a structure that is closely related to that of R 2 modifications of the minimal Einstein–Hilbert action for general relativity, opening avenues for constructing no-scale de Sitter and anti-de Sitter models by combining pairs of Minkowski models, as well as generalizations of the original no-scale Starobinsky models of inflation.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
NASA NTRS2014

The Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE)

The Primordial Inflation Explorer is an Explorer-class mission to measure the gravity-wave signature of primordial inflation through its distinctive imprint on the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background. PIXIE uses an innovative optical design to achieve background-limited sensitivity in 400 spectral channels spanning 2.5 decades in frequency from 30 GHz to 6 THz (1 cm to 50 micron wavelength). Multi-moded non-imaging optics feed a polarizing Fourier Transform Spectrometer to produce a set of interference fringes, proportional to the difference spectrum between orthogonal linear polarizations from the two input beams. Multiple levels of symmetry and signal modulation combine to reduce the instrumental signature and confusion from unpolarized sources to negligible levels. PIXIE will map the full sky in Stokes I, Q, and U parameters with angular resolution 2.6 deg and sensitivity 0.2 μK per 1 deg square pixel. The principal science goal is the detection and characterization of linear polarization from an inflationary epoch in the early universe, with tensor-to-scalar ratio r less than 10(exp −3) at 5 standard deviations. In addition, PIXIE will measure the absolute frequency spectrum to constrain physical processes ranging from inflation to the nature of the first stars to the physical conditions within the interstellar medium of the Galaxy. We describe the PIXIE instrument and mission architecture with an emphasis on the expected level of systematic error suppression.

Primordial Inflation Explorer is an Explorer-class↗
NASA NTRS2013

Rocket Sled Propelled Testing of a Supersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator

Decelerators (IADs) have traditionally been tested in wind tunnels. As the limitations of these test facilities are reached, other avenues must be pursued. The IAD being tested is a Supersonic IAD (SIAD), which attaches just aft of the heatshield around the perimeter of an entry body. This 'attached torus' SIAD is meant to improve the accuracy of landing for robotic class missions to Mars and allow for potentially increased payloads. The SIAD Design Verification (SDV) test aims to qualify the SIAD by applying a targeted aerodynamic load to the vehicle. While many test architectures were researched, a rocket sled track was ultimately chosen to be the most cost effective way to achieve the desired dynamic pressures. The Supersonic Naval Ordnance Research Track (SNORT) at the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD) China Lake is a four mile test track, traditionally used for warhead and ejection seat testing. Prior to SDV, inflatable drag bodies have been tested on this particular track. Teams at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and NAWCWD collaborate together to design and fabricate one of the largest sleds ever built. The SDV sled is comprised of three individual sleds: a Pusher Sled which holds the solid booster rockets, an Item Sled which supports the test vehicle, and a Camera Sled that is pushed in front for in-situ footage and measurements. The JPL-designed Test Vehicle has a full-scale heatshield shape and contains all instrumentation and inflation systems necessary to inflate and test a SIAD. The first campaign that is run at SNORT tested all hardware and instrumentation before the SIAD was ready to be tested. For each of the three tests in this campaign, the number of rockets and top speed was increased and the data analyzed to ensure the hardware is safe at the necessary accelerations and aerodynamic loads.

Supersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerators (SI↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Full-Scale Burst Testing for Inflatable Softgoods

Inflatable softgoods are complex, multi-material system in which each layer performs a specific function. NASA is supporting the private sector in development and testing of inflatable softgoods architectures through public-private partnerships. Inflatable softgoods represent one structural material option for future habitation platforms.

habitation↗
DOE OSTI2015

Generalised tensor fluctuations and inflation

Using an effective field theory approach to inflation, we examine novel properties of the spectrum of inflationary tensor fluctuations, that arise when breaking some of the symmetries or requirements usually imposed on the dynamics of perturbations. During single-clock inflation, time-reparameterization invariance is broken by a time-dependent cosmological background. In order to explore more general scenarios, we consider the possibility that spatial diffeomorphism invariance is also broken by effective mass terms or by derivative operators for the metric fluctuations in the Lagrangian. We investigate the cosmological consequences of the breaking of spatial diffeomorphisms, focussing on operators that affect the power spectrum of fluctuations. We identify the operators for tensor fluctuations that can provide a blue spectrum without violating the null energy condition, and operators for scalar fluctuations that lead to non-conservation of the comoving curvature perturbation on superhorizon scales even in single-clock inflation. In the last part of our work, we also examine the consequences of operators containing more than two spatial derivatives, discussing how they affect the sound speed of tensor fluctuations, and showing that they can mimic some of the interesting effects of symmetry breaking operators, even in scenarios that preserve spatial diffeomorphism invariance.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

The goldstone and goldstino of supersymmetric inflation

Here, we construct the minimal effective field theory (EFT) of supersymmetric inflation, whose field content is a real scalar, the goldstone for time-translation breaking, and a Weyl fermion, the goldstino for supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking. The inflating background can be viewed as a single SUSY-breaking sector, and the degrees of freedom can be efficiently parameterized using constrained superfields. Our EFT is comprised of a chiral superfield X NL containing the goldstino and satisfying X 2 NL = 0, and a real superfield B NL containing both the goldstino and the goldstone, satisfying X NL B NL = B 3 NL = 0. We match results from our EFT formalism to existing results for SUSY broken by a fluid background, showing that the goldstino propagates with subluminal velocities. The same effect can also be derived from the unitary gauge gravitino action after embedding our EFT in supergravity. If the gravitino mass is comparable to the Hubble scale during inflation, we identify a new parameter in the EFT related to a time-dependent phase of the gravitino mass parameter. We briefly comment on the leading contributions of goldstino loops to inflationary observables.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Clockwork axions in cosmology. Is chromonatural inflation chrononatural?

Many cosmological models rely on large couplings of axions to gauge fields. Examples include theories of magnetogenesis, inflation on a steep potential, chiral gravitational waves, and chromonatural inflation. Such theories require a mismatch between the axion field range and the mass scale appearing in the aFF~ coupling. This mismatch suggests an underlying monodromy, with the axion winding around its fundamental period a large number of times. We investigate the extent to which this integer can be explained as a product of smaller integers in a UV completion: in the parlance of our times, can the theory be “clockworked”? We argue that a clockwork construction producing a potential μ4cos(ajFa) for an axion of fundamental period Fa will obey the constraint μ < Fa. For a some applications, including chromonatural inflation with sub-Planckian field range, this constraint obstructs a clockwork UV completion. Alternative routes to a large coupling include fields of large charge (an approach limited by strong coupling) or kinetic mixing (requiring a lighter axion). Our results suggest that completions of axion cosmologies that explain the large parameter in the theory potentially alter the phenomenological predictions of the model.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

A relativistic gas of inflatons as an initial state for inflation

The possibility of the resilience of the beginning of inflation under unfavourable conditions is examined by considering the initial state of the inflaton field to be in the form of a relativistic gas with some of its properties in close proximity to the black body spectrum. It is demonstrated that the initial potential energy budget in such an environment is suppressed beyond the minimal value required for inflation. This is the extension of our earlier work, where we have shown that the rare regions which happen to host favourable initial conditions for the beginning of inflation could come to dominate the late-time Universe only if they started out from above the so-called self-reproduction threshold.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2016

On the validity of the perturbative description of axions during inflation

Axions play a central role in many realizations of large field models of inflation and in recent alternative mechanisms for generating primordial tensor modes in small field models. If these axions couple to gauge fields, the coupling produces a tachyonic instability that leads to an exponential enhancement of the gauge fields, which in turn can decay into observable scalar or tensor curvature perturbations. Thus, a fully self-consistent treatment of axions during inflation is important, and in this work we discuss the perturbative constraints on axions coupled to gauge fields. We show how the recent proposal of generating tensor modes through these alternative mechanisms is in tension with perturbation theory in the in-in formalism. Interestingly, we point out that the constraints are parametrically weaker than one would estimate based on naive power counting of propagators of the gauge field. In the case of non-Abelian gauge fields, we derive new constraints on the size of the gauge coupling, which apply also in certain models of natural large field inflation, such as alignment mechanisms.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2016

On post-inflation validity of perturbation theory in Horndeski scalar-tensor models

By using the newtonian gauge, we re-confirm that, as in the minimal case, the re-scaled Mukhanov-Sasaki variable is conserved leading to a constraint equation for the Newtonian potential. However, conversely to the minimal case, in Horndeski theories, the super-horizon Newtonian potential can potentially grow to very large values after inflation exit. If that happens, inflationary predictability is lost during the oscillating period. When this does not happen, the perturbations generated during inflation can be standardly related to the CMB, if the theory chosen is minimal at low energies. As a concrete example, we analytically and numerically discuss the new Higgs inflationary case. There, the Inflaton is the Higgs boson that is non-minimally kinetically coupled to gravity. During the high-energy part of the post-inflationary oscillations, the system is anisotropic and the Newtonian potential is largely amplified. Thanks to the smallness of today's amplitude of curvature perturbations, however, the system stays in the linear regime, so that inflationary predictions are not lost. At low energies, when the system relaxes to the minimal case, the anisotropies disappear and the Newtonian potential converges to a constant value. We show that the constant value to which the Newtonian potential converges is related to the frozen part of curvature perturbations during inflation, precisely like in the minimal case.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Rolling axions during inflation: perturbativity and signatures

The motion of a pseudo-scalar field X during inflation naturally induces a significant amplification of the gauge fields to which it is coupled. The amplified gauge fields can source characteristic scalar and tensor primordial perturbations. Several phenomenological implications have been discussed in the cases in which (i) X is the inflaton, and (ii) X is a field different from the inflaton, that experiences a temporary speed up during inflation. In this second case, visible sourced gravitational waves (GW) can be produced at the CMB scales without affecting the scalar perturbations, even if the scale of inflation is several orders of magnitude below what is required to produce a visible vacuum GW signal. Perturbativity considerations can be used to limit the regime in which these results are under perturbative control. We revised limits recently claimed for the case (i), and we extend these considerations to the case (ii). We show that, in both cases, these limits are satisfied by the applications that generate signals at CMB scales. Applications that generate gravitational waves and primordial black holes at much smaller scales are at the limit of the validity of this perturbativity analysis, so we expect those results to be valid up to possibly order one corrections.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗