TY - JOUR
T1 - Three-form inflation and non-Gaussianity
AU - Mulryne, David J.
AU - Noller, Johannes
AU - Nunes, Nelson J.
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - We calculate the perturbed action, at second and third order, for a massive three-form field minimally coupled to gravity, and use it to explore the observational predictions of three-form inflation. One intriguing result is that the value of the spectral index is nearly independent of the three-form potential, being fixed solely by the number of e-folds of inflation, with ns = 0.97 for the canonical number of 60. Considering the bispectrum, we employ standard techniques to give explicit results for two models, one of which produces a large non-Gaussianity. Finally, we confirm our results by employing a duality relating the three-form theory to a non-canonical scalar field theory and explicitly re-computing results in this dual picture.
AB - We calculate the perturbed action, at second and third order, for a massive three-form field minimally coupled to gravity, and use it to explore the observational predictions of three-form inflation. One intriguing result is that the value of the spectral index is nearly independent of the three-form potential, being fixed solely by the number of e-folds of inflation, with ns = 0.97 for the canonical number of 60. Considering the bispectrum, we employ standard techniques to give explicit results for two models, one of which produces a large non-Gaussianity. Finally, we confirm our results by employing a duality relating the three-form theory to a non-canonical scalar field theory and explicitly re-computing results in this dual picture.
U2 - 10.1088/1475-7516/2012/12/016
DO - 10.1088/1475-7516/2012/12/016
M3 - Article
SN - 1475-7516
VL - 12
JO - Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
JF - Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
M1 - 016
ER -