1-5 July 2019
The University of Manchester
Europe/London timezone
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Parametric amplification of chiral gravitational waves in single field inflation

Presented by Maria MYLOVA on 2 Jul 2019 from 15:10 to 15:30
Type: oral presentation
Track: Cosmological Probes

Content

The next generation detectors will verify, or at least constraint high energy phenomena, predicted by the vast variety of inflationary scenarios [1]. If a circularly polarized gravitational wave signal is detected, would point to the existence of parity breaking physics [2]. Here we consider, possible realizations of the effective field theory (EFT) of scalar-tensor gravity [3], which could offer a rich phenomenology. We introduce modifications to gravity which, at leading order, change the dispersion relation of gravitons [4]. The action is extended to include derivatively coupled interactions, where time-diffeomorphism invariance and parity are broken [5]. The higher-curvature coefficients are expressed in terms of relative parameters scaled by negative powers of a small speed of sound. This pushes their values into the "UV sensitive" regime where the energy scales supressing these corrections are well below the scale of the reduced Planck mass, leading to parametrically large chiral tensor fluctuations. We show that the inclusion of additional higher-derivative operators helps to cure instabilities that are otherwise unavoidable in Chern-Simons gravity [6], and derive constraints that ensure healthy solutions to the equations of motion. Finally, we discuss the effect of a disformal transformation on our system and look at other possible generalizations of scalar-tensor gravity from the EFT point of view. References [1] S. Shandera et al, "Probing the origin of our Universe through cosmic microwave background constraints on gravitational waves", [arXiv:astro-ph/1903.04700v1] (2019) [2] S. Saito, K. Ichiki and A. Taruya, "Probing polarization states of primordial gravitational waves with CMB anisotropies", JCAP 0709 (2007) 002 [3] A. R. Solomon, M. Trodden, "Higher-derivative operators and effective field theory for general scalar-tensor theories", JCAP 1802 (2018) 031 [4] T. Kobayashi, M. Yamaguchi, J. Yokoyama, "Generalized G-inflation: Inflation with the most general second-order field equations", Prog.Theor.Phys. 126 (2011) 511 [5] S. Weinberg, "Effective field theory for inflation", Phys.Rev. D 77 (2008) [6] S. Dyda, E. E. Flanagan, M. Kamionkowski, "Vacuum Instability in Chern-Simons Gravity", Phys.Rev. D 86 (2012) 124031

Place

Location: Schuster
Room: Rutherford Lecture Theatre

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