The pre-inflationary vacuum in the cosmic microwave background
| dc.creator | Powell, Brian A. | |
| dc.creator | Kinney, William H. | |
| dc.date | 2006-11-30 | |
| dc.date | 2007-08-09 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T11:00:21Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T11:00:21Z | |
| dc.description | We consider the effects on the primordial power spectrum of a period of radiation-dominated expansion prior to the inflationary era. If inflation lasts a total of only 60 e-folds or so, the boundary condition for quantum modes cannot be taken in the short-wavelength limit as in the standard perturbation calculation. Instead, the boundary condition is set by the vacuum state of the prior radiation-dominated epoch, which only corresponds to the inflationary vacuum state in the ultraviolet limit. This altered vacuum state results in a modulation of the inflationary power spectrum. We calculate the modification to a best-fit model from the WMAP3 data set, and find that power is suppressed at large scales. The modified power spectrum is favored only very weakly by the data. | |
| dc.description | 4 pages, 2 figures, references added. Version submitted to PRL. (v3: 9 pages, 4 figures, detailed justification of Eq. 11 of v2. Version accepted for publication by PRD.) | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0612006 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0612006 | |
| dc.identifier | Phys.Rev.D76:063512,2007 | |
| dc.identifier | doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.76.063512 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/187660 | |
| dc.subject | Astrophysics | |
| dc.title | The pre-inflationary vacuum in the cosmic microwave background | |
| dc.type | text |