Conformal invariance, dynamical dark energy and the CMB
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
Einstein's General Relativity receives quantum corrections relevant at cosmological distance scales. These effects arise from conformal scalar degrees of freedom in the extended Effective Field Theory (EFT) of gravity required by the trace anomaly of the quantum stress tensor in curved space. Scalar degrees of freedom in cosmology arise naturally from the effective action of the trace anomaly in the Standard Model, without the ad hoc introduction of an inflaton field. In the EFT including the trace anomaly terms, {Lambda}{sub eff} becomes dynamical and potentially dependent upon both space and time. The fluctuations of these anomaly scalars may also influence the spectrum and statistics of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Under the hypothesis that scale invariance should be promoted to full conformal invariance, an hypothesis supported by the embedding of the conformal group of three dimensional flat sections in de Sitter space, the form of the CMB bi-spectrum can be fixed, and the tri-spectrum constrained. The angular spectra predicted by conformal invariance differ from those suggested by simple models of inflation.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396
- OSTI ID:
- 1023420
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-10-04603; LA-UR-10-4603; TRN: US1104536
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Conf. Proceedings of the 45th Rencontres de Moriond ; March 13, 2010 ; La Thuile, Aosta Valley, Italy
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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