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Quantum diffusion and large primordial perturbations from inflation

Vincent Vennin, David Wands

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

Abstract

Quantum diffusion describes the inflow of vacuum quantum fluctuations as they get amplified by gravitational instability, and stretched to large distances during inflation. In this picture, the dynamics of the universe's expansion becomes stochastic, and the statistics of the curvature perturbation is encoded in the distribution of the duration of inflation. This provides a non-perturbative framework to study cosmological fluctuations during inflation, which is well-suited to the case of primordial black holes since they originate from large fluctuations. We show that standard, perturbative expectations for the primordial black hole abundance can be significantly modified by quantum-diffusion effects, and we identify a few open challenges.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPrimordial Black Holes
EditorsChris Byrnes, Gabriele Franciolini, Tomohiro Harada, Paolo Pani, Misao Sasaki
PublisherSpringer
Pages201-227
Number of pages27
ISBN (Electronic)9789819788873
ISBN (Print)9789819788866
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 May 2025

Publication series

NameSpringer Series in Astrophysics and Cosmology
PublisherSpringer, Singapore
ISSN (Print)2731-734X
ISSN (Electronic)2731-7358

Keywords

  • Cosmology
  • inflation
  • stochastic
  • quantum diffusion
  • primordial perturbations

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