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Barenboim, G., & Park, W. I. (2015). Spiral inflation with Coleman-Weinberg potential. Phys. Rev. D, 91(6), 063511–5pp.
Abstract: We apply the idea of spiral inflation to the Coleman-Weinberg potential and show that inflation matching our observations well is allowed for a symmetry-breaking scale ranging from an intermediate scale to a grand unified theory (GUT) scale even if the quartic coupling lambda is of O(0.1). The tensor-to-scalar ratio can be of O(0.01) in the case of GUT-scale symmetry breaking.
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Barenboim, G., Park, W. I., & Kinney, W. H. (2016). Eternal hilltop inflation. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 05(5), 030–15pp.
Abstract: We consider eternal inflation in hilltop-type inflation models, favored by current data, in which the scalar field in inflation rolls off of a local maximum of the potential. Unlike chaotic or plateau-type inflation models, in hilltop inflation the region of field space which supports eternal inflation is finite, and the expansion rate H-EI during eternal inflation is almost exactly the same as the expansion rate H-* during slow roll inflation. Therefore, in any given Hubble volume, there is a finite and calculable expectation value for the lifetime of the “eternal” inflation phase, during which quantum flucutations dominate over classical field evolution. We show that despite this, inflation in hilltop models is nonetheless eternal in the sense that the volume of the spacetime at any finite time is exponentially dominated by regions which continue to inflate. This is true regardless of the energy scale of inflation, and eternal inflation is supported for inflation at arbitrarily low energy scale.
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Alicki, R., Barenboim, G., & Jenkins, A. (2023). Quantum thermodynamics of de Sitter space. Phys. Rev. D, 108(12), 123530–13pp.
Abstract: We consider the local physics of an open quantum system embedded in an expanding three-dimensional space x, evolving in cosmological time t, weakly coupled to a massless quantum field. We derive the corresponding Markovian master equation for the system's nonunitary evolution and show that, for a de Sitter space with Hubble parameter h 1/4 const, the background fields act as a physical heat bath with temperature TdS 1/4 h/2z. The energy density of this bath obeys the Stefan-Boltzmann law pdS proportional to h4. We comment on how these results clarify the thermodynamics of de Sitter space and support previous arguments for its instability in the infrared. The cosmological implications are considered in an accompanying Letter.
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Norena, J., Verde, L., Barenboim, G., & Bosch, C. (2012). Prospects for constraining the shape of non-Gaussianity with the scale-dependent bias. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 08(8), 019–16pp.
Abstract: We consider whether the non-Gaussian scale-dependent halo bias can be used not only to constrain the local form of non-Gaussianity but also to distinguish among different shapes. In particular, we ask whether it can constrain the behavior of the primordial three-point function in the squeezed limit where one of the momenta is much smaller than the other two. This is potentially interesting since the observation of a three-point function with a squeezed limit that does not go like the local nor equilateral templates would be a signal of non-trivial dynamics during inflation. To this end we use the quasi-single field inflation model of Chen & Wang [1, 2] as a representative two-parameter model, where one parameter governs the amplitude of non-Gaussianity and the other the shape. We also perform a model-independent analysis by parametrizing the scale-dependent bias as a power-law on large scales, where the power is to be constrained from observations. We find that proposed large-scale structure surveys (with characteristics similar to the dark energy task force stage IV surveys) have the potential to distinguish among the squeezed limit behavior of different bispectrum shapes for a wide range of fiducial model parameters. Thus the halo bias can help discriminate between different models of inflation.
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Barenboim, G., & Hill, C. T. (2021). Sterile neutrinos, black hole vacuum and holographic principle. Eur. Phys. J. C, 81(2), 150–9pp.
Abstract: We construct an effective field theory (EFT) model that describes matter field interactions with Schwarzschild mini-black-holes (SBH's), treated as a scalar field, B0(x). Fermion interactions with SBH's require a complex spurion field, theta ij, which we interpret as the EFT description of “holographic information,” which is correlated with the SBH as a composite system. We consider Hawking's virtual black hole vacuum (VBH) as a Higgs phase, B0=V. Integrating sterile neutrino loops, the information field theta ij is promoted to a dynamical field, necessarily developing a tachyonic instability and acquiring a VEV of order the Planck scale. For N sterile neutrinos this breaks the vacuum to SU(N)xU(1)/SO(N) with N degenerate Majorana masses, and <mml:mfrac>12</mml:mfrac>N(N+1) Nambu-Goldstone neutrino-Majorons. The model suggests many scalars fields, corresponding to all fermion bilinears, may exist bound nonperturbatively by gravity.
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