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Reexamination of the Power Spectrum in De Sitter Inflation

Iván Agulló, José Navarro-Salas, Gonzalo J. Olmo, and Leonard Parker
Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 171301 – Published 20 October 2008
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Abstract

We find that the amplitude of quantum fluctuations of the invariant de Sitter vacuum coincides exactly with that of the vacuum of a comoving observer for a massless scalar (inflaton) field. We propose redefining the actual physical power spectrum as the difference between the amplitudes of the above vacua. An inertial particle detector continues to observe the Gibbons-Hawking temperature. However, although the resulting power spectrum is still scale-free, its amplitude can be drastically reduced since now, instead of the Hubble’s scale at the inflationary period, it is determined by the square of the mass of the inflaton fluctuation field.

  • Received 5 June 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.171301

©2008 American Physical Society

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The primordial power spectrum revisited

Published 20 October 2008

The universe we see today is the result of mass-energy fluctuations during the rapid inflationary expansion that followed the big bang. A new approach to analyzing those fluctuations brings theory into better alignment with observational data.

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Authors & Affiliations

Iván Agulló* and José Navarro-Salas

  • Departamento de Física Teórica and IFIC, Centro Mixto Universidad de Valencia-CSIC. Facultad de Física, Universidad de Valencia, Burjassot-46100, Valencia, Spain

Gonzalo J. Olmo

  • Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 2Y5 Canada
  • Instituto de Estructura de la Materia, CSIC, Serrano 121, 28006 Madrid, Spain

Leonard Parker

  • Physics Department, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, P.O.Box 413, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201 USA

  • *ivan.agullo@uv.es, jnavarro@ific.uv.es
  • golmo@perimeterinstitute.ca
  • leonard@uwm.edu

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Issue

Vol. 101, Iss. 17 — 24 October 2008

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