2019/10/31 by Daniel Baumann, Carlos Duaso Pueyo, Austin Joyce +2 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #hep-th #astro-ph.CO #gr-qc #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/jhep12(2020)204
53 pages, 5 figures; V2: minor corrections and references added
arxiv created 2020/08/12 · arxiv updated 2021/02/03
A key insight of the bootstrap approach to cosmological correlations is the fact that all correlators of slow-roll inflation can be reduced to a unique building block---the four-point function of conformally coupled scalars, arising from the exchange of a massive scalar. Correlators corresponding to the exchange of particles with spin are then obtained by applying a spin-raising operator to the scalar-exchange solution. Similarly, the correlators of massless external fields can be derived by acting with a suitable weight-raising operator. In this paper, we present a systematic and highly streamlined derivation of these operators (and their generalizations) using tools of conformal field theory. Our results greatly simplify the theoretical foundations of the cosmological bootstrap program.