Gravitational Wave Consistency Relations for Multifield Inflation

Layne C. Price, Hiranya V. Peiris, Jonathan Frazer, and Richard Easther
Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 031301 – Published 22 January 2015

Abstract

We study the tensor spectral index nt and the tensor-to-scalar ratio r in the simplest multifield extension to single-field, slow-roll inflation models. We show that multifield models with potentials Viλi|ϕi|p have different predictions for nt/r than single-field models, even when all the couplings are equal λi=λj, due to the probabilistic nature of the fields’ initial values. We analyze well-motivated prior probabilities for the λi and initial conditions to make detailed predictions for the marginalized probability distribution of nt/r. With O(100) fields and p>3/4, we find that nt/r differs from the single-field result of nt/r=1/8 at the 5σ level. This gives a novel and testable prediction for the simplest multifield inflation models.

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  • Received 15 September 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.031301

© 2015 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Layne C. Price1,*, Hiranya V. Peiris2,†, Jonathan Frazer3,‡, and Richard Easther1,§

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019 Auckland, New Zealand
  • 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom
  • 3Department of Theoretical Physics, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, 48040 Bilbao, Spain

  • *lpri691@aucklanduni.ac.nz
  • h.peiris@ucl.ac.uk
  • j.frazer@ucl.ac.uk
  • §r.easther@auckland.ac.nz

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Issue

Vol. 114, Iss. 3 — 23 January 2015

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