Modulated fluctuations from hybrid inflation

2004/03/15 by Francis Bernardeau, Lev Kofman, Jean-Philippe Uzan +1 · 11 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Adiabatic process #Classical mechanics #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Eternal inflation #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Inflation (cosmology) #Inflaton #Non-Gaussianity #Observable #Physics #Primordial fluctuations #Quantum mechanics #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics #Statistical physics #Symmetry breaking #Theoretical physics #astro-ph #hep-ph #hep-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.70.083004

published as Phys.Rev. D70 (2004) 083004 · 15 p, 2 figs

arxiv created 2004/03/15 · openalex publication_date 2004/10/12 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Inflation universally produces classical almost scale free Gaussian inhomogeneities of any light scalars. Assuming the coupling constants at the time of inflation depend on some light moduli fields, we encounter the generation of modulated cosmological fluctuations from (p)reheating. This is an alternative mechanism to generate observable (almost) scale free adiabatic metric perturbations. We extend this idea to the class of hybrid inflation, where the bifurcation value of the inflaton is modulated by the spatial inhomogeneities of the couplings. As a result, the symmetry breaking after inflation occurs not simultaneously in space but with the time laps in different Hubble patches inherited from the long-wavelength moduli inhomogeneities. To calculate modulated fluctuations we introduce techniques of general relativistic matching conditions for metric perturbations at the time hypersurface where the equation of state after inflation undergoes a jump, without evoking the detailed microscopic physics, as far as it justifies the jump. We apply this theory to the modulated fluctuations from the hybrid and chaotic inflations. We discuss what distinguishes the modulated from the inflation-driven fluctuations, in particular, their spectral index, modification of the consistency relation, and the issue of weak non-Gaussianity.

Citations

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Cited by

• Spillway preheating
• On reaching the adiabatic limit in multi-field inflation
• How the curvaton scenario, modulated reheating and an inhomogeneous end of inflation are related
• Non‐Gaussianity from Particle Production during Inflation
• Inflation models and observation
• A new perspective on supersymmetric inflation
• On the generation of a non-gaussian curvature perturbation during preheating
• Combined local and equilateral non-Gaussianities from multifield DBI inflation
• Shape of high order correlation functions in CMB anisotropy maps
• CMB spectral distortions in generic two-field models
• On classification of models of large local-type non-Gaussianity