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Title: Generalized slow roll in the unified effective field theory of inflation

Journal Article · · Physical Review D
 [1];  [2]
  1. Universidad de Valencia-CSIC (Spain). Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC)
  2. Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States). Kavli Inst. for Cosmological Physics and Dept. of Astronomy and Astrophysics

In this paper, we provide a compact and unified treatment of power spectrum observables for the effective field theory (EFT) of inflation with the complete set of operators that lead to second-order equations of motion in metric perturbations in both space and time derivatives, including Horndeski and GLPV theories. We relate the EFT operators in ADM form to the four additional free functions of time in the scalar and tensor equations. Using the generalized slow roll formalism, we show that each power spectrum can be described by an integral over a single source that is a function of its respective sound horizon. With this correspondence, existing model independent constraints on the source function can be simply reinterpreted in the more general inflationary context. By expanding these sources around an optimized freeze-out epoch, we also provide characterizations of these spectra in terms of five slow-roll hierarchies whose leading order forms are compact and accurate as long as EFT coefficients vary only on timescales greater than an e-fold. Finally, we also clarify the relationship between the unitary gauge observables employed in the EFT and the comoving gauge observables of the post-inflationary universe.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP); National Science Foundation (NSF); Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation of Spain (MINECO); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0009924; FG02-13ER41958; PHY-0114422; PHY-0551142; SEV-2014-0398; II/2014/050; FPA2014-57816-P; 690575; 674896; ATP NNX15AK22G; PHY-1066293
OSTI ID:
1595705
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1368623
Journal Information:
Physical Review D, Vol. 96, Issue 2; ISSN 2470-0010
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 26 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (8)

Constant-roll inflation in scalar-tensor gravity journal November 2019
Weakly-coupled stealth solution in scordatura degenerate theory journal January 2020
Inflationary perturbation spectra at next-to-leading slow-roll order in effective field theory of inflation journal November 2019
Primordial Black Holes and Slow-Roll Violation text January 2017
Inflationary Features and Shifts in Cosmological Parameters from Planck 2015 Data text January 2017
Frame-dependence of higher-order inflationary observables in scalar-tensor theories text January 2017
Inflationary perturbation spectra at next-to-leading slow-roll order in effective field theory of inflation text January 2019
Constant-roll inflation in scalar-tensor gravity text January 2019

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