2004/10/22 by Robert Brandenberger, Robert H. Brandenberger, Jerome Martin +1 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Anisotropy #Back-reaction #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Classical mechanics #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmological constant #Cosmology #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark energy #Excited state #Hubble's law #Inflation (cosmology) #Inflaton #Physics #Planck #Primordial fluctuations #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum mechanics #Scale (ratio) #Theoretical physics #astro-ph #gr-qc #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.71.023504
published as Phys.Rev. D71 (2005) 023504 · 13 pages, 2 figures, RevTex
arxiv created 2004/10/22 · openalex publication_date 2005/01/06 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
It has recently been suggested that Planck scale physics may effect the evolution of cosmological fluctuations in the early stages of cosmological inflation in a nontrivial way, leading to an excited state for modes whose wavelength is super-Planck but sub-Hubble. In this case, the issue of how this excited state back-reacts on the background space-time arises. In fact, it has been suggested that such back-reaction effects may lead to tight constraints on the magnitude of possible deviations from the usual predictions of inflation. In this note we discuss some subtle aspects of this back-reaction issue and point out that rather than preventing inflation, the back-reaction of ultraviolet fluctuations may simply lead to a renormalization of the cosmological constant driving inflation.