INFPROBES · Microscopic Probes of Inflationary Cosmology
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2017-10-01 → 2019-09-30
- EU contribution
- €177,599
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Microscopic Probes of Inflationary Cosmology
"This project concerns the understanding of the initial conditions of our universe. The universe began its existence in a state of very high temperature and certain constituents. However, instead of having random initial conditions, it had highly correlated initial seeds, which are responsible for the later formation of all structure that we see today. The appearance of those seeds is naturally explained by a period of very accelerated expansion in the earliest stage of the universe. This project investigated this period - so called ""inflation"" - and developed various new tools designed to better understand said period, and also to potentially verify it in detail, through future observations of the sky. Although of theoretical nature, this project touches a deep question that is widely appreciated by society - what is the origin of the universe, and why is there any organized structure in it."
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The theory of cosmic inflation is the current paradigm for early universe cosmology. I propose a research and training programme centered around two themes in inflationary cosmology. First, I will determine new signatures of high-energy physics in inflation i) by finding new shapes of non-Gaussianity, in particular signatures from the tower of higher-spin states predicted in high-energy completions of gravity such as string theory, and also ii) by studying natural extensions of the tensor sector, in particular higher spin fields with partial gauge symmetries, and the imprints left by these fields in tensor non-Gaussianity and in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. To achieve i) and ii), I will use methods of field theory in curved backgrounds, as well as general symmetry properties of cosmological correlation functions. Second, I will study quantum instabilities in de Sitter space, as well as an analogue in flat space, a constant background electric field. The instabilities will be determined by studying response functions and vacuum polarization in strong fields. The signatures proposed in the first theme will provide tools to perform particle spectroscopy and determine the field content of inflation. The effects proposed in the second theme are a potential microscopic mechanism for the dynamics of inflation. This programme will be conducted at the University of Amsterdam, giving me access to a wide network of collaborators in the fields of high-energy physics and cosmology, and provide me extensive training in various aspects of inflationary cosmology, CMB physics, string theory and the dynamics of systems out of equilibrium. The skills acquired in this proposal will tie excellently with my previous formation in cosmological perturbation theory, single-field inflation, and the dS/CFT correspondence.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM · AmsterdamCoordinatorNetherlands
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union