skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Inflationary perturbations and precision cosmology

Journal Article · · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4]
  1. T-8, University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)
  2. Institut fuer Physik, Universitaet Dortmund, D-44221 Dortmund (Germany)
  3. ISR-1, University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)
  4. T-6, University of California, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)

Inflationary cosmology provides a natural mechanism for the generation of primordial perturbations which seed the formation of observed cosmic structure and lead to specific signals of anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background radiation. In order to test the broad inflationary paradigm as well as particular models against precision observations, it is crucial to be able to make accurate predictions for the power spectrum of both scalar and tensor fluctuations. We present detailed calculations of these quantities utilizing direct numerical approaches as well as error-controlled uniform approximations, comparing with the (uncontrolled) traditional slow-roll approach. A simple extension of the leading-order uniform approximation yields results for the power spectra amplitudes, the spectral indices, and the running of spectral indices, with accuracy of the order of 0.1%--approximately the same level at which the transfer functions are known. Several representative examples are used to demonstrate these results.

OSTI ID:
20706004
Journal Information:
Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 71, Issue 4; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.71.043518; (c) 2005 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English