[The University of Texas at Austin: What starts here changes the world]
Theory Group
Theory Group Seminar, 11 February 2014


Dr. Guido D'Amico, New York University

Unwinding Inflation

abstract

Higher-form flux that extends in all 3+1 dimensions of spacetime is a source of positive vacuum energy that can drive meta-stable eternal inflation. If the flux also threads compact extra dimensions, the spontaneous nucleation of a bubble of brane charged under the flux can trigger a classical cascade that steadily unwinds many units of flux, gradually decreasing the vacuum energy while inflating the bubble, until the cascade ends in the self-annihilation of the brane into radiation. With an initial number of flux quanta Q_{0} \simgeq N, this can result in N efolds of inflationary expansion while producing a scale-invariant spectrum of adiabatic density perturbations with amplitude and tilt consistent with observation. We predict a power spectrum with an oscillatory component, relatively large tensor power, and potentially observable non-Gaussianities.



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