Joint cosmology seminar at MIT:

Tuesday, February 28, 2017, 2:30 pm
Cosman Seminar Room
Center for Theoretical Physics
Building 6C, Room 6C-442
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Refreshments at 2:00 in the same room

Dissipation during inflation

Marco Peloso
Minnesota

Abstract:

I will discuss phenomena associated with particle production and field excitation during inflation. In the first part of the talk I will present several signatures both at large - CMB - and small - gravitational wave (GW) interferometer - scale, that can originate from the coupling of an axion inflaton to gauge fields. In the second part I will test the robustness of the standard implications associated with the detection of a GW signal at CMB scales, by discussing what conditions can allow a visible sourced GW background that exceeds the vacuum one (without simultaneously overproduce scalar perturbations), and by providing a concrete example. In the final part I will review the phenomenology of trapped inflation, which is an interesting and minimal mechanism where particle production provides the main friction for the motion of the inflaton.