Inflating in a trough: single-field effective theory from multiple-field curved valleys

DOI10.1007/JHEP01(2013)133zbMATH Open1342.83232arXiv1209.5701MaRDI QIDQ302541FDOQ302541

Authors: M. W. Horbatsch, Subodh P. Patil, C. P. Burgess 

Publication date: 12 August 2016

Published in: Journal of High Energy Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We examine the motion of light fields near the bottom of a potential valley in a multi-dimensional field space. In the case of two fields we identify three general scales, all of which must be large in order to justify an effective low-energy approximation involving only the light field, $ell$. (Typically only one of these -- the mass of the heavy field transverse to the trough -- is used in the literature when justifying the truncation of heavy fields.) We explicitly compute the resulting effective field theory, which has the form of a $P(ell,X)$ model, with $X=-1/2(partialell{)}^2$, as a function of these scales. This gives the leading ways each scale contributes to any low-energy dynamics, including (but not restricted to) those relevant for cosmology. We check our results with the special case of a homogeneous roll near the valley floor, placing into a broader context recent cosmological calculations that show how the truncation approximation can fail. By casting our results covariantly in field space, we provide a geometrical criterion for model-builders to decide whether or not the single-field and/or the truncation approximation is justified, identify its leading deviations, and to efficiently extract cosmological predictions.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1209.5701

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zbMATH Keywords

field theories in higher dimensionscosmology of theories beyond the SM

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Quantum field theory on curved space or space-time backgrounds (81T20) Space-time singularities, cosmic censorship, etc. (83C75) Relativistic cosmology (83F05)

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Cited In (18)

• Possible signatures of the inflationary particle content: spin-2 fields
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• EFT beyond the horizon: stochastic inflation and how primordial quantum fluctuations go classical
• A tip for landscape riders: multi-field inflation can fulfill the swampland distance conjecture
• Multifield inflation beyond N_field=2: non-Gaussianities and single-field effective theory
• Path integral for multi-field inflation
• Multi-field inflation in high-slope potentials
• (Super)universal attractors and the de Sitter vacua in string landscape
• Constraining \( \mathcal{N}=1\) supergravity inflationary framework with non-minimal Kähler operators
• Scalaron from R²-gravity as a heavy field
• Interferometer constraints on the inflationary field content
• Towards general patterns of features in multi-field inflation
• Yoga Dark Energy: natural relaxation and other dark implications of a supersymmetric gravity sector
• Cosmological perturbations in the spatially covariant gravity with a dynamical lapse function
• Cosmological trans-Planckian conjectures are not effective
• The string swampland constraints require multi-field inflation
• Revisiting non-Gaussianity in multifield inflation with curved field space

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