Theory HEP Seminar

Anomalous High Energy Dependence in Inflationary Density Perturbations

Yi Wang

McGill University

We study the contribution of spectator massive scalar fields to the inflationary density perturbations through the universal gravitational coupling. We find that such contribution has several remarkable properties: it does not decrease as the mass of the spectator field increases; it has a significant size and cannot be turned off by any adjustable parameters; and it applies to all massive scalars existed during inflation, making the overall effect unexpectedly large. As a result, the primordial density perturbations are anomalously sensitive to the high energy physics.

Major reference: arXiv:1207.0100v1