Parity violation in the Cosmic Microwave Background from a pseudoscalar inflaton
- Department of Physics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003 (United States)
If the inflaton φ is a pseudoscalar, then it naturally interacts with gauge fields through the coupling ∝φ F{sub μν} F-tilde {sup μν}. Through this coupling, the rolling inflaton produces quanta of the gauge field, that in their turn source the tensor components of the metric perturbations. Due to the parity-violating nature of the system, the right- and the left-handed tensor modes have different amplitudes. Such an asymmetry manifests itself in the form of non-vanishing TB and EB correlation functions in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). We compute the amplitude of the parity-violating tensor modes and we discuss two scenarios, consistent with the current data, where parity-violating CMB correlation functions will be detectable in future experiments.
- OSTI ID:
- 22277672
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2011, Issue 06; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1475-7516
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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