arXiv subjects

Amjad Ashoorioon

Publications and source records attributed to Amjad Ashoorioon.

41 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2009

Energy Transfer in Multi Field Inflation and Cosmological Perturbations

In cascade inflation and some other string inflation models, collisions of mobile branes with other branes or orbifold planes occur and lead to interesting cosmological signatures. The fundamental M/string-theory description of these collisions is still lacking but it is clear that the inflaton looses part of its energy to some form of brane matter, e.g. a component of tensionless strings. In the absence of a fundamental description, we assume a general barotropic fluid on the brane, which absorbs part of the inflaton's energy. The fluid is modeled by a scalar with a suitable exponential potential to arrive at a full-fledged field theory model. We study numerically the impact of the energy transfer from the inflaton to the scalar on curvature and isocurvature perturbations and demonstrate explicitly that the curvature power spectrum gets modulated by oscillations which damp away toward smaller scales. Even though, the contribution of isocurvature perturbations decays toward the end of inflation, they induce curvature perturbations on scales that exit the horizon before the collision. We consider cases where the scalar behaves like radiation, matter or a web of cosmic strings and discuss the differences in the resulting power spectra.

hep-th↗

arXiv2008

Gravity Waves from Chain Inflation

Chain inflation proceeds through a series of first order phase transitions, which can release considerable gravitational waves (GW). We demonstrate that bubble collisions can leave an observable signature for future high-frequency probes of GWs, such as advanced LIGO, LISA and BBO. A "smoking gun" for chain inflation would be wiggles in the spectrum (and consequently in the tensor spectral index) due to the multiple phase transitions. The spectrum could also be distinguished from a single first order phase transition by a small difference in the amplitude at low frequency. A second origin of GWs in chain inflation are tensor modes from quantum fluctuations; these GW can dominate and be observed on large scales. The consistency relation between scalar and tensor modes is different for chain inflation than for standard rolling models and is testable by Cosmic Microwave Background experiments. If inflation happened through a series of rapid tunnelings in the string landscape, future high frequency probes of GW can shed light on the structure of the landscape.

hep-th↗

arXiv2008

Slow nucleation rates in Chain Inflation with QCD Axions or Monodromy

The previous proposal (by two of us) of chain inflation with the QCD axion is shown to fail. The proposal involved a series of fast tunneling events, yet here it is shown that tunneling is too slow. We calculate the bubble nucleation rates for phase transitions in the thick wall limit, approximating the barrier by a triangle. A similar problem arises in realization of chain inflation in the string landscape that uses series of minima along the monodromy staircase around the conifold point. The basic problem is that the minima of the potential are too far apart to allow rapid enough tunneling in these two models. We entertain the possibility of overcoming this problem by modifying the gravity sector to a Brans-Dicke theory. However, one would need extremely small values for the Brans-Dicke parameter. Many successful alternatives exist, including other "axions" (with mass scales not set by QCD) or potentials with comparable heights and widths that do not suffer from the problem of slow tunneling and provide successful candidates for chain inflation.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2006

Power Spectrum and Signatures for Cascade Inflation

The power spectrum of M-theory cascade inflation is derived. It possesses three distinctive signatures: a decisive power suppression at small scales, oscillations around the scales that cross the horizon when the inflaton potential jumps and stepwise decrease in the scalar spectral index. All three properties result from features in the inflaton potential. Cascade inflation realizes assisted inflation in heterotic M-theory and is driven by non-perturbative interactions of N M5-branes. The features in the inflaton potential are generated whenever two M5-branes collide with the boundaries. The derived small-scale power suppression serves as a possible explanation for the dearth of observed dwarf galaxies in the Milky Way halo. The oscillations, furthermore, allow to directly probe M-theory by measurements of the spectral index and to distinguish cascade inflation observationally from other string inflation models.

hep-th↗

arXiv2005

Generation of Cosmological Seed Magnetic Fields from Inflation with Cutoff

Inflation has the potential to seed the galactic magnetic fields observed today. However, there is an obstacle to the amplification of the quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field during inflation: namely the conformal invariance of electromagnetic theory on a conformally flat underlying geometry. As the existence of a preferred minimal length breaks the conformal invariance of the background geometry, it is plausible that this effect could generate some electromagnetic field amplification. We show that this scenario is equivalent to endowing the photon with a large negative mass during inflation. This effective mass is negligibly small in a radiation and matter dominated universe. Depending on the value of the free parameter of the theory, we show that the seed required by the dynamo mechanism can be generated. We also show that this mechanism can produce the requisite galactic magnetic field without resorting to a dynamo mechanism.

gr-qc↗