Inflation, quintessence, and the origin of mass

DOI10.1016/J.NUCLPHYSB.2015.05.019zbMATH Open1329.83241arXiv1408.0156OpenAlexW1623259832WikidataQ56936903 ScholiaQ56936903MaRDI QIDQ906689FDOQ906689

Authors: Christof Wetterich 

Publication date: 22 January 2016

Published in: Nuclear Physics B (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: In a unified picture both inflation and present dynamical dark energy arise from the same scalar field. The history of the Universe describes a crossover from a scale invariant "past fixed point" where all particles are massless, to a "future fixed point" for which spontaneous breaking of the exact scale symmetry generates the particle masses. The cosmological solution can be extrapolated to the infinite past in physical time - the universe has no beginning. This is seen most easily in a frame where particle masses and the Planck mass are field-dependent and increase with time. In this "freeze frame" the Universe shrinks and heats up during radiation and matter domination. In the equivalent, but singular Einstein frame cosmic history finds the familiar big bang description. The vicinity of the past fixed point corresponds to inflation. It ends at a first stage of the crossover. A simple model with no more free parameters than $Lambda$CDM predicts for the primordial fluctuations a relation between the tensor amplitude $r$ and the spectral index $n,r=8.19(1-n)-0.137$. The crossover is completed by a second stage where the beyond-standard-model sector undergoes the transition to the future fixed point. The resulting increase of neutrino masses stops a cosmological scaling solution, relating the present dark energy density to the present neutrino mass. At present our simple model seems compatible with all observational tests. We discuss how the fixed points can be rooted within quantum gravity in a crossover between ultraviolet and infrared fixed points. Then quantum properties of gravity could be tested both by very early and late cosmology.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1408.0156

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Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Symmetry breaking in quantum theory (81R40) Model quantum field theories (81T10) Unified quantum theories (81V22) Relativistic cosmology (83F05)

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Cited In (21)

• Inflation driven by \(q\)-de Sitter
• The origin of Weyl gauging in metric-affine theories
• Comments on the hierarchy problem in effective theories
• The great emptiness at the beginning of the universe
• Lattice simulations of non-minimally coupled scalar fields in the Jordan frame
• Statefinder analysis of scale-dependent cosmology
• How inflationary spacetimes might evolve into spacetimes of finite total mass
• Scaling solutions for dilaton quantum gravity
• The hierarchy problem and the cosmological constant problem revisited
• Gravitational waves from global cosmic strings in quintessential inflation
• Boosting ultraviolet freeze-in in NO models
• Hubble-induced phase transitions: Walls are not forever
• Field transformations in functional integral, effective action and functional flow equations
• Scaling solutions for asymptotically free quantum gravity
• Hubble-induced phase transitions on the lattice with applications to Ricci reheating
• Ability of LIGO and LISA to probe the equation of state of the early Universe
• Fundamental scale invariance
• Hot big bang or slow freeze?
• Scaling solution for field-dependent gauge couplings in quantum gravity
• Asymptotic freedom and safety in quantum gravity
• Graviton fluctuations erase the cosmological constant

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