Multiple inflation and the WMAP “glitches”

2004/08/31 by Paul Hunt, Paul M. Hunt, S. Sarkar +1
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Anisotropy #Astrophysics #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #CMB cold spot #Classical mechanics #Cosmic microwave background #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Curvature #Geometry #Geophysics and Gravity Measurements #Inflation (cosmology) #Inflaton #Perturbation (astronomy) #Physics #Primordial fluctuations #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Theoretical physics #astro-ph #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.70.103518

published as Phys.Rev.D70:103518,2004 · 15 pages, 8 figures; Changes: clarifying comments, typos corrected, additional figure; to appear in Physical Review D

arxiv created 2004/10/13 · openalex publication_date 2004/11/15 · arxiv updated 2011/02/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Observations of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe suggest the possibility of oscillations in the primordial curvature perturbation. Such deviations from the usually assumed scale-free spectrum were predicted in the multiple inflation model wherein ``flat direction'' fields undergo rapid phase transitions due to the breaking of supersymmetry by the large vacuum energy driving inflation. This causes sudden changes in the mass of the (gravitationally coupled) inflaton and interrupts its slow roll. We calculate analytically the resulting modifications to the curvature perturbation and demonstrate how the oscillations arise.

Citations

• Model‐independent Reconstruction of the Primordial Power Spectrum fromWilkinson Microwave Anistropy ProbeData
• The statistical significance of the low cosmic microwave background mulitipoles
• Suppressing the lower multipoles in the CMB anisotropies
• Superimposed oscillations in the WMAP data?
• Inflation model with lower multipoles of the CMB suppressed
• Non-commutative inflation and the CMB
• A more accurate analytic calculation of the spectrum of cosmological perturbations produced during inflation
• Towards inflation in string theory
• Reconstructing the primordial power spectrum
• A General Analytic Formula for the Spectral Index of the Density Perturbations produced during Inflation
• First‐Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe ( WMAP ) Observations: Determination of Cosmological Parameters
• Particle Physics Models of Inflation and the Cosmological Density Perturbation
• Some aspects of thermal inflation: The finite temperature potential and topological defects