Hypergeometric solutions to coupled Klein-Gordon equations in cosmology with small-field excursions

Abstract

The Klein-Gordon equation is a second order differential equation that appears in a variety of applications in mathematics, physics and engineering. This equation is often solved using numerical methods, since a general analytical solution is unattainable. However, one can find very useful analytical solutions for some special cases. In cosmology, the Klein-Gordon equation of a field can explain the physics of inflation and has important consequences on understanding the origin and evolution of the universe. An analytical solution to the Klein-Gordon equation in cosmology has been obtained in the small-field excursion approximation, and it turns out that the solution can be written in terms of the confluent hypergeometric limit function. In this work, we derive this result again while showing the details of the calculations and then generalize to the case of two coupled Klein-Gordon equations. We show that the solution of this coupled system can be written in terms of Kummer's hypergeometric limit function while considering minimal assumptions. We carry out a full numerical calculation of the coupled system and compare it to the results from the analytical expressions.