Possible constraints on the duration of inflationary expansion from quantum stress tensor fluctuations

2006/08/31 by Chun-Hsien Wu, Chung‐Hsien Wu, Kin‐Wang Ng +2 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.75.103502

published as Phys.Rev.D75:103502,2007 · 21 pages, no figures; Sect. IV rewritten and expanded, several comments and references added

arxiv created 2007/04/27 · openalex publication_date 2007/05/02 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We discuss the effect of quantum stress tensor fluctuations in de Sitter spacetime upon the expansion of a congruence of timelike geodesics. We treat a model in which the expansion fluctuations begin on a given hypersurface in de Sitter spacetime, and find that this effect tends to grow, in contrast to the situation in flat spacetime. This growth potentially leads to observable consequences in inflationary cosmology in the form of density perturbations which depend upon the duration of the inflationary period. In the context of our model, the effect may be used to place upper bounds on this duration.

Citations

• Quantum Fields in Curved Space
• Vacuum fluctuations and Brownian motion of a charged test particle near a reflecting boundary
• Particle creation by black holes

Cited by

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