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arXiv · 1005.1649

Infrared effects in inflationary correlation functions

David Seery
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Abstract

In this article, I briefly review the status of infrared effects which occur when using inflationary models to calculate initial conditions for a subsequent hot, dense plasma phase. Three types of divergence have been identified in the literature: secular, "time-dependent" logarithms, which grow with time spent outside the horizon; "box-cutoff" logarithms, which encode a dependence on the infrared cutoff when calculating in a finite-sized box; and "quantum" logarithms, which depend on the ratio of a scale characterizing new physics to the scale of whatever process is under consideration, and whose interpretation is the same as conventional field theory. I review the calculations in which these divergences appear, and discuss the methods which have been developed to deal with them.

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David Seery. 2010-05-10. Infrared effects in inflationary correlation functions. https://doi.org/10.1088/0264-9381%2F27%2F12%2F124005

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