Eternal inflation | EPFL Graph Search

Eternal inflation is a hypothetical inflationary universe model, which is itself an outgrowth or extension of the Big Bang theory. According to eternal inflation, the inflationary phase of the universe's expansion lasts forever throughout most of the universe. Because the regions expand exponentially rapidly, most of the volume of the universe at any given time is inflating. Eternal inflation, therefore, produces a hypothetically infinite multiverse, in which only an insignificant fractal volume ends inflation. Paul Steinhardt, one of the original researchers of the inflationary model, introduced the first example of eternal inflation in 1983, and Alexander Vilenkin showed that it is generic. Alan Guth's 2007 paper, "Eternal inflation and its implications", states that under reasonable assumptions "Although inflation is generically eternal into the future, it is not eternal into the past." Guth detailed what was known about the subject at the time, and demonstrated that eternal inf

Numerical investigations of 3D CFTs using conformal bootstrap methods

Marten Jan Reehorst

Conformal field theories (CFTs) play a very significant role in modern physics, appearing in such diverse fields as particle physics, condensed matter and statistical physics and in quantum gravity both as the string worldsheet theory and through the AdS/CFT correspondence. In recent years major breakthroughs have been made in solving these CFTs through a method called numerical conformal bootstrap. This method uses consistency conditions on the CFT data in order to find and constrain conformal field theories and obtain precise measurements of physical observables. In this thesis we apply the conformal bootstrap to study among others the O(2)- and the ARP^3- models in 3D. In the first chapter we extend the conventional scalar numerical conformal bootstrap to a mixed system of correlators involving a scalar field charged under a global U(1) symmetry and the associated conserved spin-1 current J. The inclusion of a conserved spinning operator is an important advance in the numerical bootstrap program. Using numerical bootstrap techniques we obtain bounds on new observables not accessible in the usual scalar bootstrap. Concentrating on the O(2) model we extract rigorous bounds on the three-point function coefficient of two currents and the unique relevant scalar singlet, as well as those of two currents and the stress tensor. Using these results, and comparing with a quantum Monte Carlo simulation of the O(2) model conductivity, we give estimates of the thermal one-point function of the relevant singlet and the stress tensor. We also obtain new bounds on operators in various sectors. In the second chapter we investigate the existence of a second-order phase transition in the ARP^3 model. This model has a global O(4) symmetry and a discrete Z_2 gauge symmetry. It was shown by a perturbative renormalization group analysis that its Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson effective description does not have any stable fixed point, thus disallowing a second-order phase transition. However, it was also shown that lattice simulations contradict this, finding strong evidence for the existence of a second-order phase transition. In this chapter we apply conformal bootstrap methods to the correlator of four scalars t transforming in the traceless symmetric representation of O(4) in order to investigate the existence of this second order phase transition. We find various features that stand out in the region predicted by the lattice data. Moreover, under reasonable assumptions a candidate island can be isolated. We also apply a mixed t-s bootstrap setup in which this island persists. In addition we study the kink-landscape for all representations appearing in the t times t OPE for general N. Among others, we find a new family of kinks in the upper-bound on the dimension of the first scalar operator in the "Box" and "Hook" representations.

EPFL2020

Magnetogenesis In Natural Inflation Model

Oleksandr Sobol

We study the process of inflationary magnetogenesis in the natural single-field inflation model, whose parameters are chosen in accordance with the recent observations by the Planck collaboration [1]. The conformal invariance of the Maxwell action is broken by a kinetic coupling with the inflaton field by means of the coupling function as a power of the scale factor, I(phi) proportional to a(alpha), and alpha < 0 is used in order to avoid the strong coupling problem. For such.., the electric component of the energy density dominates over the magnetic one and, for alpha less than or similar to -2.2, it causes a strong back-reaction, which can spoil inflation and terminate the enhancement of the magnetic field. It is found that the magnetic fields generated without back-reaction problem cannot exceed similar to 10(-20) G at the present epoch, and their spectrum has a blue tilt.

BOGOLYUBOV INST THEORETICAL PHYSICS NATL ACAD SCI UKRAINE2018

CMB photons shedding light on dark matter

Benjamin Audren, Gaëlle Giesen, Julien Lesgourgues

The annihilation or decay of Dark Matter (DM) particles could affect the thermal history of the universe and leave an observable signature in Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies. We update constraints on the annihilation rate of DM particles in the smooth cosmological background, using WMAP7 and recent small-scale CMB data. With a systematic analysis based on the Press-Schechter formalism, we also show that DM annihilation in halos at small redshift may explain entirely the reionization patterns observed in the CMB, under reasonable assumptions concerning the concentration and formation redshift of halos. We find that a mixed reionization model based on DM annihilation in halos as well as star formation at a redshift z similar or equal to 6.5 could simultaneously account for CMB observations and satisfy constraints inferred from the Gunn-Peterson effect. However, these models tend to reheat the inter-galactic medium (IGM) well above observational bounds: by including a realistic prior on the IGM temperature at low redshift and allowing most of the reionization to be due to star formation, we find stronger cosmological bounds on the annihilation cross-section than with the CMB alone.

Iop Publishing Ltd2012

Numerical investigations of 3D CFTs using conformal bootstrap methods

Marten Jan Reehorst

EPFL2020