2001/02/28 by D. Boyanovsky, Francisco J. Cao, F. J. Cao +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/s0550-3213(02)00238-9
published as Nucl.Phys. B632 (2002) 121-154 · LaTex, 36 pages, 7 .ps figures. Improved version to appear in Nucl. Phys. B
arxiv created 2002/04/26 · openalex publication_date 2002/06/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We investigate inflation driven by the evolution of highly excited quantum states within the framework of out of equilibrium field dynamics. These states are characterized by a non-perturbatively large number of quanta in a band of momenta but with vanishing expectation value of the scalar field.They represent the situation in which initially a non-perturbatively large energy density is localized in a band of high energy quantum modes and are coined tsunami-waves. The self-consistent evolution of this quantum state and the scale factor is studied analytically and numerically. It is shown that the time evolution of these quantum states lead to two consecutive stages of inflation under conditions that are the quantum analogue of slow-roll. The evolution of the scale factor during the first stage has new features that are characteristic of the quantum state. During this initial stage the quantum fluctuations in the highly excited band build up an effective homogeneous condensate with a non- perturbatively large amplitude as a consequence of the large number of quanta. The second stage of inflation is similar to the usual classical chaotic scenario but driven by this effective condensate.The excited quantum modes are already superhorizon in the first stage and do not affect the power spectrum of scalar perturbations. Thus, this tsunami quantum state provides a field theoretical justification for chaotic scenarios driven by a classical homogeneous scalar field of large amplitude.