Towards a formal description of the collapse approach to the inflationary origin of the seeds of cosmic structure

Inflation plays a central role in our current understanding of the universe. According to the standard viewpoint, the homogeneous and isotropic mode of the inflaton field drove an early phase of nearly exponential expansion of the universe, while the quantum fluctuations (uncertainties) of the other...

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Autores principales: Diez-Tejedor, A., Sudarsky, D.
Formato: JOUR
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Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12110/paper_14757516_v2012_n7_p_DiezTejedor
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spelling todo:paper_14757516_v2012_n7_p_DiezTejedor2023-10-03T16:18:44Z Towards a formal description of the collapse approach to the inflationary origin of the seeds of cosmic structure Diez-Tejedor, A. Sudarsky, D. Alternatives to inflation physics of the early universe quantum field theory on curved space Inflation plays a central role in our current understanding of the universe. According to the standard viewpoint, the homogeneous and isotropic mode of the inflaton field drove an early phase of nearly exponential expansion of the universe, while the quantum fluctuations (uncertainties) of the other modes gave rise to the seeds of cosmic structure. However, if we accept that the accelerated expansion led the universe into an essentially homogeneous and isotropic space-time, with the state of all the matter fields in their vacuum (except for the zero mode of the inflaton field), we can not escape the conclusion that the state of the universe as a whole would remain always homogeneous and isotropic. It was recently proposed in [A. Perez, H. Sahlmann and D. Sudarsky, "On the quantum origin of the seeds of cosmic structure", Class. Quant. Grav. 23 (2006) 2317-2354] that a collapse (representing physics beyond the established paradigm, and presumably associated with a quantum-gravity effect à la Penrose) of the state function of the inflaton field might be the missing element, and thus would be responsible for the emergence of the primordial inhomogeneities. Here we will discuss a formalism that relies strongly on quantum field theory on curved space-times, and within which we can implement a detailed description of such a process. The picture that emerges clarifies many aspects of the problem, and is conceptually quite transparent. Nonetheless, we will find that the results lead us to argue that the resulting picture is not fully compatible with a purely geometric description of space-time. © 2012 IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa. JOUR info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ar http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12110/paper_14757516_v2012_n7_p_DiezTejedor
institution Universidad de Buenos Aires
institution_str I-28
repository_str R-134
collection Biblioteca Digital - Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales (UBA)
topic Alternatives to inflation
physics of the early universe
quantum field theory on curved space
spellingShingle Alternatives to inflation
physics of the early universe
quantum field theory on curved space
Diez-Tejedor, A.
Sudarsky, D.
Towards a formal description of the collapse approach to the inflationary origin of the seeds of cosmic structure
topic_facet Alternatives to inflation
physics of the early universe
quantum field theory on curved space
description Inflation plays a central role in our current understanding of the universe. According to the standard viewpoint, the homogeneous and isotropic mode of the inflaton field drove an early phase of nearly exponential expansion of the universe, while the quantum fluctuations (uncertainties) of the other modes gave rise to the seeds of cosmic structure. However, if we accept that the accelerated expansion led the universe into an essentially homogeneous and isotropic space-time, with the state of all the matter fields in their vacuum (except for the zero mode of the inflaton field), we can not escape the conclusion that the state of the universe as a whole would remain always homogeneous and isotropic. It was recently proposed in [A. Perez, H. Sahlmann and D. Sudarsky, "On the quantum origin of the seeds of cosmic structure", Class. Quant. Grav. 23 (2006) 2317-2354] that a collapse (representing physics beyond the established paradigm, and presumably associated with a quantum-gravity effect à la Penrose) of the state function of the inflaton field might be the missing element, and thus would be responsible for the emergence of the primordial inhomogeneities. Here we will discuss a formalism that relies strongly on quantum field theory on curved space-times, and within which we can implement a detailed description of such a process. The picture that emerges clarifies many aspects of the problem, and is conceptually quite transparent. Nonetheless, we will find that the results lead us to argue that the resulting picture is not fully compatible with a purely geometric description of space-time. © 2012 IOP Publishing Ltd and Sissa.
format JOUR
author Diez-Tejedor, A.
Sudarsky, D.
author_facet Diez-Tejedor, A.
Sudarsky, D.
author_sort Diez-Tejedor, A.
title Towards a formal description of the collapse approach to the inflationary origin of the seeds of cosmic structure
title_short Towards a formal description of the collapse approach to the inflationary origin of the seeds of cosmic structure
title_full Towards a formal description of the collapse approach to the inflationary origin of the seeds of cosmic structure
title_fullStr Towards a formal description of the collapse approach to the inflationary origin of the seeds of cosmic structure
title_full_unstemmed Towards a formal description of the collapse approach to the inflationary origin of the seeds of cosmic structure
title_sort towards a formal description of the collapse approach to the inflationary origin of the seeds of cosmic structure
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12110/paper_14757516_v2012_n7_p_DiezTejedor
work_keys_str_mv AT dieztejedora towardsaformaldescriptionofthecollapseapproachtotheinflationaryoriginoftheseedsofcosmicstructure
AT sudarskyd towardsaformaldescriptionofthecollapseapproachtotheinflationaryoriginoftheseedsofcosmicstructure
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