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In this paper, we investigate the primordial power spectrum of cosmological tensor perturbations in the dressed metric approach to Loop Quantum Cosmology. We compute the background-dependent effective mass that affects their propagation using the effective description of Loop Quantum Cosmology and show that this mass can be approximated in different cosmological epochs by appropriate analytic functions. Moreover, in each of those epochs we can analytically solve the propagation of the perturbations, then obtaining the general solution globally by continuity requirements. On the other hand, since there are regimes far away from slow roll in the considered background evolution, the Bunch–Davies state does not provide a privileged choice of vacuum that would pick out a specific solution for the perturbations. Instead, we select the state of these perturbations by a recently proposed criterion that removes unwanted oscillations in the power spectrum. We compute the spectrum of this vacuum and compare it with other spectra obtained in the literature, especially with one corresponding to the hybrid approach to Loop Quantum Cosmology. Finally, we notice that the same type of background dynamics is found in a phenomenological approach to quantum gravity based on thermodynamics, allowing in this case a free value for the tantamount of the critical density. Extending the dressed metric proposal to this phenomenological model, one might expect a similar form for the associated primordial power spectrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the implications of different quantization approaches in Loop Quantum Cosmology for the primordial power spectrum of tensor modes. Specifically, we consider the hybrid and dressed metric approaches to derive the effective mass that governs the evolution of the tensor modes. Our study comprehensively examines the two resulting effective masses and how to estimate them in order to obtain approximated analytic solutions to the tensor perturbation equations. Since Loop Quantum Cosmology incorporates preinflationary effects in the dynamics of the perturbations, we do not have at our disposal a standard choice of privileged vacuum, like the Bunch–Davies state in quasi-de Sitter inflation. We then select the vacuum state by a recently proposed criterion which removes unwanted oscillations in the power spectrum and guarantees an asymptotic diagonalization of the Hamiltonian in the ultraviolet. This vacuum is usually called the NO-AHD (from the initials of Non-Oscillating with Asymptotic Hamiltonian Diagonalization) vacuum. Consequently, we compute the power spectrum by using our analytic approximations and by introducing a suitable numerical procedure, adopting in both cases an NO-AHD vacuum. With this information, we compare the different spectra obtained from the hybrid and the dressed metric approaches, as well as from the analytic and numerical procedures. In particular, this proves the remarkable accuracy of our approximations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the presence of the gravitational field, the energy density of matter no longer coincides with its mass density. A discrepancy exists, of course, also between the associated power spectra. Within the Λ CDM model, we derive a formula that relates the power spectrum of the energy density to that of the mass density and test it with the help of N-body simulations run in comoving boxes of 2.816 Gpc/h. The results confirm the validity of the derived formula and simultaneously show that the power spectra diverge significantly from one another at large cosmological scales.

We investigate the cosmological perturbations around all three branches of spatially flat universe with different connections in symmetric teleparallel gravity. The model we consider can cover both the case of f(Q) model and that of the non-minimal coupling between a scalar field and the non-metricity scalar. We focus on analyzing and comparing the propagation behavior and stability of the tensorial and non-tensorial gravitational waves on spatially flat universe with different connections.

In this paper, we construct a bounce inflation cosmological scenario in the framework of the modified symmetric teleparallel gravity, namely f(Q) theory, and investigate the tensor perturbations therein. As is well-known, the tensor perturbations generated in the very early Universe (inflation and pre-inflation regions) can account for the primordial gravitational waves (PGWs) that are to be detected by the next generation of GW experiments. We discuss the stability condition of the tensor perturbations in the bounce inflation process and investigate in detail the evolution of the perturbation variable. The general form of the tensor power spectrum is obtained both for large as well as small scale modes. As a result, we show both kinds of modes (short or long wavelength modes), and the tensor spectrum may get a positive tilt in the parametric range where the tensor perturbation proves to be stable—this interestingly hints an enhancement of gravitational waves' amplitude in the background of the f(Q) bounce-inflation scenario. Moreover, we study the LQC-like scenario as a specific case of our model, in which, the primordial tensor power spectrum turns out to be nearly scale-invariant on both small and large scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cosmological models with inflation and those with bounce have their own strengths and weaknesses. Here, we construct a model in which a phase of bounce is followed by a viable inflationary phase. This incorporates several advantages of both and hence, is a more viable model for cosmic evolution. We explore scenarios wherein the bouncing phase smoothly transits to an inflationary one, with the pivot scale leaving the Hubble horizon during the latter era, thereby maintaining consistency with observations. Staying within the ambit of Einstein–Hilbert gravity augmented by the inflation, we ensure a pre-inflationary bounce by introducing a second scalar field that helps engineer the requisite violation of the null energy condition. Potential ghost instabilities can be mitigated by invoking a nontrivial coupling between the two scalar fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the cosmological model with an interaction between dynamical quintessence dark energy and cold dark matter. Evolution of the dark energy equation of state parameter is defined by the dark energy adiabatic sound speed and the dark sector interaction parameter, which must be a more physically correct model then the one previously used, in which this evolution was determined by some fixed dependence on the scale factor. The constraints on the interaction parameter and other parameters of the model were obtained using the cosmic microwave background, baryon acoustic oscillations and the supernova SN Ia data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a non‐interacting scalar field cosmology with an arbitrary potential using the f‐deviser method that relies on the differentiability properties of the potential is investigated. Using this alternative mathematical approach, a unified dynamical system analysis at a scalar field's background and perturbation levels with arbitrary potentials is presented. For illustration, a monomial and double exponential potential is considered. These two classes of potentials comprise the asymptotic behavior of several classes of scalar field potentials, and, therefore, they provide the skeleton for the typical behavior of arbitrary potentials. Moreover, the linear cosmological perturbations in the matterless case by considering three scalar perturbations: the evolution of the Bardeen potentials, the comoving curvature perturbation, the so‐called Sasaki‐Mukhanov variable, or the scalar field perturbation in uniform curvature gauge is analyzed. Finally, an exhaustive dynamical system analysis for each scalar perturbation is presented, including the evolution of Bardeen potentials in the presence of matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study analytical approximate solutions for second-order homogeneous differential equations with the existence of only two turning points (but without poles) by using the uniform asymptotic approximation (UAA) method. To be more concrete, we consider the Pöschl–Teller (PT) potential, for which analytical solutions are known. Depending on the values of the parameters involved in the PT potential, we find that the upper bounds of the errors of the approximate solutions in general are ≲0.15∼10% for the first-order approximation of the UAA method. The approximations can be easily extended to high orders, for which the errors are expected to be much smaller. Such obtained analytical solutions can be used to study cosmological perturbations in the framework of quantum cosmology as well as quasi-normal modes of black holes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work treats cosmological perturbation in a mixture of standard matter, Chaplygin gas as well as Gauss–Bonnet fluids using a 1+3 covariant approach in the context of modified f (G) gravity. We define the gradient variables to obtain linear perturbation equations. After scalar and redshift transformations, we consider both an original Chaplygin and generalized Chaplygin gas models under Gauss–Bonnet gravity. For pedagogical purposes, the consideration of polynomial f (G) gravity model was used to solve the perturbation equations for short- and long-wavelength modes and investigate the late-time evolution. The numerical solutions were obtained. The results show that the energy overdensity perturbations decay with an increase in redshift. The treatment recovers GR results under limiting cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

About 70% of the Universe is Dark Energy, but the physics community still does not know what it is. Delta gravity (DG) is an alternative theory of gravitation that could solve this cosmological problem. Previously, we studied the Universe's accelerated expansion, where DG was able to explain the SNe-Ia data successfully. In this work, we computed the cosmological fluctuations in DG that give rise to the CMB through a hydrodynamic approximation. We calculated the gauge transformations for the metric and the perfect fluid to present the equations of the evolution of cosmological fluctuations. This provided the necessary equations to solve the scalar TT power spectrum in a semi-analytical way. These equations are useful for comparing the DG theory with astronomical observations and thus being able to constrain the DG cosmology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consideration of a 1 + 3 covariant approach to cold dark matter universe with no shear cosmological dust model with irrotational flows is developed in the context of f (G) gravity theory in this study. This approach reveals the existence of integrability conditions which do not appear in noncovariant treatments. We constructed the integrability conditions in modified Gauss–Bonnet f (G) gravity basing on the constraints and propagation equations. These integrability conditions reveal the linearized silent nature of quasi-Newtonian models in f (G) gravity. Finally, the linear equations for the overdensity and velocity perturbations of the quasi-Newtonian spacetime were constructed in the context of modified f (G) gravity. The application of harmonic decomposition and redshift transformation techniques to explore the behavior of the overdensity and velocity perturbations using f (G) model was made. On the other hand, we applied the quasi-static approximation to study the approximated solutions on small scales which helps to get both analytical and numerical results of the perturbation equations. The analysis of the energy overdensity and velocity perturbations for both short- and long-wavelength modes in a dust-Gauss–Bonnet fluids was done and we see that both energy overdensity and velocity perturbations decay with redshift for both modes. In the limits to Λ CDM, it means f (G) = G the considered f (G) model results coincide with Λ CDM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we present the evolution of cosmological perturbations in a universe consisting of standard matter and interacting vacuum. We use the 1 + 3 covariant formalism in perturbation framework and consider two different models for the interacting vacuum; namely, a linear interacting model and interaction with creation pressure model. For both models, we derive the evolution equations governing the growth of linear perturbations for both radiation- and dust-dominated universe. We find numerical solutions in appropriate limits, namely long and short wavelengths. For both models, the perturbations grow with time (decay with redshift), showing that structure formation is possible in an accelerated cosmic background. The perturbation amplitudes — and their relative scalings with those of Λ CDM — depend on the values of the interaction parameters considered, and in a way that can be used to constrain the models using existing and future large-scale structure data. In the vanishing limits of the coupling parameters of the interaction, we show that standard Λ CDM cosmology, both background and perturbed, is recovered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Warm inflation, its different particle physics model implementations, and the implications of dissipative particle production for its cosmology are reviewed. First, we briefly present the background dynamics of warm inflation and contrast it with the cold inflation picture. An exposition of the space of parameters for different well-motivated potentials, which are ruled out, or severely constrained in the cold inflation scenario, but not necessarily in warm inflation, is provided. Next, the quantum field theory aspects in realizing explicit microscopic models for warm inflation are given. This includes the derivation of dissipation coefficients relevant in warm inflation for different particle field theory models. The dynamics of cosmological perturbations in warm inflation are then described. The general expression for the curvature scalar power spectrum is shown. We then discuss in detail the relevant regimes of warm inflation, the weak and strong dissipative regimes. We also discuss the results predicted in these regimes of warm inflation and how they are confronted with the observational data. We explain how the dissipative dynamics in warm inflation can address several long-standing issues related to (post-) inflationary cosmology. This includes recent discussions concerning the so-called swampland criteria and how warm inflation can belong to the landscape of string theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the backreaction of nonlinear perturbations on the global evolution of the Universe within the cosmic screening approach. To this end, we have considered the second-order scalar perturbations. An analytical study of these perturbations followed by a numerical evaluation shows that, first, the corresponding average values have a negligible backreaction effect on the Friedmann equations and, second, the second-order correction to the gravitational potential is much less than the first-order quantity. Consequently, the expansion of perturbations into orders of smallness in the cosmic screening approach is correct.

The treatment of (1+3)-covariant perturbation in a multifluid cosmology with the consideration of f (G) gravity, G being the Gauss–Bonnet term, is done in this paper. We define a set of covariant and gauge-invariant variables to describe density, velocity and entropy perturbations for both the total matter and component fluids. We then use different techniques such as scalar decomposition, harmonic decomposition, quasi-static approximation together with the redshift transformation to get simplified perturbation equations for analysis. We then discuss a number of interesting applications like the case where the universe is filled with a mixture of radiation and Gauss–Bonnet fluids as well as dust with Gauss–Bonnet fluids for both short- and long-wavelength limits. Considering polynomial f (G) model, we get numerical solutions of energy density perturbations and show that they decay with increase in redshift. This feature shows that under f (G) gravity, specifically under the considered f (G) model, one expects that the formation of the structure in the late Universe is enhanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider scalar-torsion gravity theories based on the exact solutions of a physical type of potential for cosmological inflationary models based on the non-minimal coupling of a scalar field and torsion. We analyzed the inflationary models with different types of inflationary dynamics and corresponding scalar field parameters. Such an approach allows us to consider different physical potentials and types of scalar-torsion gravity theories in the context of the realization of both stages of accelerated expansion of the universe. We also considered the correspondence surrounding the proposed inflationary models and the observational constraints on the parameters of cosmological perturbations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

de Sitter–Gödel–de Sitter phase transition (dGd) is a possible geometrical phase transition in the very early universe. It induces fluctuations with possibly observable traces on matter and radiation fields. Here we present a simulation based on dGd to investigate possible perturbations which could be along with the standard inflationary fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background and distribution of the large-scale structure. The power spectrum of perturbations is characterized by a parameter pair, labeled here as ( p 1 , p 2 ). With Planck observations we find p 1 = 0. 008 - 0.008 + 0.003 and p 2 = 0. 002 - 0.002 + 0.001 consistent with pure inflationary power spectrum and no hint for the dGd transition. Also, it is estimated future large-scale surveys such as Euclid and SKA can further tighten the constraints up to an order of magnitude and probe the physics of the early universe with much higher precision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we generalize our previous results on spin connection for the linear scalar cosmological perturbation in f (T) theory to a wider class of theories which includes a scalar field Φ non-minimally coupled to torsion, and allows Φ -dependence of the function f. The case of f T T = 0 , with a scalar field non-minimally coupled to torsion, needs a special treatment. In both considered cases we derive self-consistent equations of motion for cosmological perturbation using a solution for non-trivial spin connection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hybrid and the dressed metric formalisms for the study of primordial perturbations in Loop Quantum Cosmology lead to dynamical equations for the modes of these perturbations that are of a generalized harmonic-oscillator type, with a mass that depends on the background but is the same for all modes. For quantum background states that are peaked on trajectories of the effective description of Loop Quantum Cosmology, the main difference between the two considered formalisms is found in the expression of this mass. The value of the mass at the bounce is especially important, since it is only in a short interval around this event that the quantum geometry effects on the perturbations are relevant. In a previous article, the properties of this mass were discussed for an inflaton potential of quadratic form, or with similar characteristics. In the present work, we extend this study to other interesting potentials in cosmology, namely the Starobinsky and the exponential potentials. We prove that there exists a finite interval of values of the potential (which includes the zero but typically goes beyond the sector of kinetically dominated inflaton energy density) for which the hybrid mass is positive at the bounce whereas the dressed metric mass is negative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work we study four well-known inflationary scenarios that are reported by the most recent Planck observations: Natural inflation, Hilltop quartic inflation, Starobinsky inflationary model, and Large field power-law potentials V (ϕ) ∼ ϕ p , considering p = 2 3 , 4 3 . The analysis is done using both the slow-roll approximation and the numerical solution to the background and perturbation equations. We show that the numerical solution improved the precision of these models with respect to the contour plot r vs. n S , having a lower r in each model compared to the value calculated from the slow-roll approximation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper tries to answer the question: Can a de Sitter phase in presence of radiation be a competitor of the standard inflationary paradigm for the early universe? This kind of a de Sitter phase can exist in cosmological models where gravitational particle production takes place. To address the issue the metric perturbations in the de Sitter phase in presence of radiation must be known. The evolution of metric perturbations are explicitly calculated in the paper. It is seen that the evolution of scalar and vector perturbations are considerably different from standard inflationary models. These differences arise due to the particle production mechanism. The scalar perturbation power spectrum grows exponentially at small length scales. However, one cannot uniquely specify the scale at which this exponential growth starts because of the dependence of the power spectrum on the initial perturbation value. The time slice on which the initial perturbation starts is arbitrary. The arbitrariness of the initial time slice is related to the problem of setting the initial condition on the perturbations in the present model. The paper briefly opines on vector and tensor perturbations in the de Sitter space filled with radiation. It is seen that quantization of the perturbation modes in the present model is considerably difficult. One has to modify the present model to provide a consistent scheme of quantization of the perturbation modes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pre-Big Bang cosmology inspired generations of cosmologists in attempts to cure the initial Big Bang singularity using a fundamental length scale as proposed by string theory. The existence of a phase of collapse/inflation with increasing curvature followed by a cosmic bounce has been proposed as an alternative to standard inflation in the solution of the horizon and curvature problems. However, the generation of a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of perturbations is not an automatic prediction of such scenarios. In this paper, I review some general statements about the evolution of perturbations in bouncing cosmologies and some historically significant attempts to reconcile the predicted spectra with the observations. Bouncing cosmologies and, in particular, the pre-Big Bang scenario stand as viable, although more complicated, alternatives to inflation that may still help solve current theoretical and observational tensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compare two competing relativistic approaches to the N-body simulation of the Universe large-scale structure. To this end, employing the corresponding alternative computer codes (“gevolution” and “screening”), we conduct a series of cosmological simulations in boxes of different sizes and calculate the power spectra of the scalar perturbation Φ, the frame-dragging vector potential B and the difference between scalar modes χ=Φ−Ψ. We demonstrate that the corresponding power spectra are in very good agreement between the compared schemes. For example, the relative difference of the power spectra for Φ is 0.04% maximum. Since the perturbed Einstein equations have much simpler form in the screening approach, the simulation with this code consumes less computational time, saving almost 40% of CPU hours.

We investigate the characteristic modifications in the evolving cosmological perturbations when dark energy interacts with dust-like matter, causing the latter's background energy density fall off with time faster than usual. Focusing in particular to the late-time cosmic evolution, we show that such an interaction (of a specific form, arising naturally in a scalar-tensor formulation, or a wide range of modified gravity equivalents thereof), can have a rather significant effect on the perturbative spectrum, than on the background configuration which is not expected to get distorted much from Ł CDM. Specifically, the matter density contrast, which is by and large scale-invariant in the deep sub-horizon limit, not only gets dragged as the interaction affects the background Hubble expansion rate, but also receives a contribution from the perturbation in the (scalar field induced) dark energy, which oscillates about a nonzero mean value. As such, the standard parametrization ansatz for the matter density growth factor becomes inadequate. So we modify it suitably, and also find a numerical fit of the growth index in terms of the background parameters, in order to alleviate the problems that arise otherwise. Such a fit enables direct estimations of the background parameters, as well as the growth parameter and the reduced Hubble parameter, which we duly carry out using a redshift space distortion (RSD) subsample and its combination with the observational Hubble data. On the whole, the parametric estimates show consistency with the general observational constraints on the background level cosmology, as well as the constraints on scalar-tensor gravity from astrophysical observations, apart from having significance in the domain of cosmological perturbations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We apply the Dirac procedure for constrained systems to the Arnowittâ€"Deserâ€"Misner formalism linearized around the Bianchi I universe. We discuss and employ basic concepts such as Dirac observables, Dirac brackets, gauge-fixing conditions, reduced phase space, physical Hamiltonian, canonical isomorphism between different gauge-fixing surfaces and spacetime reconstruction. We relate this approach to the gauge-fixing procedure for non-perturbative canonical relativity. We discuss the issue of propagating a basis for the scalar-vector-tensor decomposition as, in an anisotropic universe, the wavefronts of plane waves undergo a nontrivial evolution. We show that the definition of a gravitational wave as a traceless-transverse mode of the metric perturbation needs to be revised. Moreover there exist coordinate systems in which a polarization mode of the gravitational wave is given entirely in terms of a scalar metric perturbation. We first develop the formalism for the universe with a single minimally coupled scalar field and then extend it to the multi-field case. The obtained fully canonical formalism will serve as a starting point for a complete quantization of the cosmological perturbations and the cosmological background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We derive an effective equation and action for comoving curvature perturbations and gravitational waves (GWs) in terms of a time, momentum and polarization dependent effective speed, encoding the effects of the interaction among metric perturbations or with other fields, such as dark energy and dark matter. The structure of the effective actions and equations is the same for scalar and tensor perturbations, and the effective actions can be written as the Klein–Gordon action in terms of an appropriately defined effective metric, dependent on the effective speed. The effective action reproduces, and generalizes to higher order in perturbations, results obtained for GWs in the effective field theory of inflation and dark energy, or for curvature perturbations in systems with multiple scalar fields, encoding in the effective speed the effects of both entropy and anisotropy. The effective approach can also be applied to the solutions of theories with field equations different from the Einstein equations, by defining an appropriate effective energy–momentum tensor. As an example, we show that for a minimally coupled scalar field in general relativity, the effective speeds of curvature perturbations and gravitational waves are frequency and polarization dependent, due to their coupling in the action beyond the quadratic order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A time-like unit vector field is used to generalize Einstein's gravity. The resulting theory, called the Einstein-aether theory, consists of a minimal coupling between an aether field and gravity. Inspired by the Bopp-Podolsky electrodynamics, which is well-known for removing the singularity at the point charge, we generalized the Einstein-aether theory by adding such a higher order self-interaction term. We show that the resulting theory can explain the late time accelerated expansion of the universe. We then consider the cosmological perturbation theory on the top of the de Sitter solution and try to answer the question whether an additional Lorentz breaking vector field can cure the small scales instability of the Bopp-Podolsky electrodynamics. p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; direction: rtl; line-height: 120%; text-align: right; }p.western { font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; }p.cjk { font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt; }p.ctl { font-family: "Lotus"; font-size: 15pt; }

In this paper, the cosmological perturbations of dynamical dark energy and dark matter, which interact non-gravitationally are studied. This dark energy–dark matter non-gravitational interaction is linearly dependent on the energy densities of dark components. However, in the interacting quintessence dark energy models with such type of interaction, the non-adiabatic instabilities of cosmological perturbations at radiation-dominated epoch arise. To avoid this problem, the model of dynamical dark energy was chosen as the basis. Here, the equation of state parameter of dark energy evolves in time but can be assumed constant at early epoch, so this model can be tuned in such a way that the non-adiabatic instabilities would not appear. The drawback of this cosmological model is that the energy densities of dark components can take the negative values for the certain range of interaction parameter, so the conditions for positivity of dark components densities were derived. Using obtained constraints on the model parameters, the impact of coupling parameter on modification of cosmological perturbations' evolution is analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we study numerically one kind of generalization of the Starobinsky inflationary model (power-law type), which is characterized by the parameter p. In order to find the parameter p that fixes with observations, we compute the cosmological parameters A S , n S and r for several values of p ≃ 1. We have found that the value of p = 1. 0 0 0 4 reproduces the value of A S , n S and r is in agreement with the current observational data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore cosmological perturbations in a modified Gauss–Bonnet f (G) gravity, using a 1 + 3 covariant formalism. In such a formalism, we define gradient variables to get perturbed linear evolution equations. We transform these linear evolution equations into ordinary differential equations using a spherical harmonic decomposition method. The obtained ordinary differential equations are time-dependent and then transformed into redshift-dependent. After these transformations, we analyze energy-density perturbations for two fluid systems, namely, for a Gauss–Bonnet field-dust system and for a Gauss–Bonnet field-radiation system for three different pedagogical f (G) models: trigonometric, exponential and logarithmic. For the Gauss–Bonnet field-dust system, energy-density perturbations decay with increase in redshift for all the three models. For the Gauss–Bonnet field-radiation system, the energy-density perturbations decay with increase in redshift for all of the three f (G) models for long wavelength modes whereas for short wavelength modes, the energy-density perturbations decay with increasing redshift for the logarithmic and exponential f (G) models and oscillate with decreasing amplitude for the trigonometric f (G) model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This manuscript explores the dynamics of an inflationary model using two known exact solutions, i.e., logamediate and exponential expansion. To achieve this, the framework of generalized induced gravity non-minimally coupled to Ricci scalar is taken under consideration. Using slow-roll approximation and a generalized form of coupling function, we find the possible forms of potential needed to produce inflation in the model and conduct the mathematical analysis of cosmological perturbations. In both of the eras, we constraint the involved model parameters by comparing the r − n s trajectories with Planck 2015 astrophysical data. Also, we reconstruct these inflationary models assuming as attractors the scalar spectral index and tensor-scalar ratio as a function of number of e-foldings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a brief summary of the four main veins in the treatment of decoherence and quantum to classical transition in cosmology since the 1980s, we focus on one of these veins in the study of quantum decoherence of cosmological perturbations in inflationary universe, the case when it does not rely on any environment. This is what ‘intrinsic’ in the title refers to—a closed quantum system, consisting of a quantum field which drives inflation. The question is whether its quantum perturbations, which interact with the density contrast giving rise to structures in the universe, decohere with an inflationary expansion of the universe. A dominant view which had propagated for a quarter of a century asserts yes, based on the belief that the large squeezing of a quantum state after a duration of inflation renders the system effectively classical. This paper debunks this view by identifying the technical fault-lines in its derivations and revealing the pitfalls in its arguments which drew earlier authors to this wrong conclusion. We use a few simple quantum mechanical models to expound where the fallacy originated: The highly squeezed ellipse quadrature in phase space cannot be simplified to a line, and the Wigner function cannot be replaced by a delta function. These measures amount to taking only the leading order in the relevant parameters in seeking the semiclassical limit and ignoring the subdominant contributions where quantum features reside. Doing so violates the bounds of the Wigner function, and its wave functions possess negative eigenvalues. Moreover, the Robertson-Schrödinger uncertainty relation for a pure state is violated. For inflationary cosmological perturbations, in addition to these features, entanglement exists between the created pairs. This uniquely quantum feature cannot be easily argued away. Indeed, it could be our best hope to retroduce the quantum nature of cosmological perturbations and the trace of an inflation field. All this points to the invariant fact that a closed quantum system, even when highly squeezed, evolves unitarily without loss of coherence; quantum cosmological perturbations do not decohere by themselves.

Density contrasts in the universe are governed by scalar cosmological perturbations which, when expressed in terms of gauge-invariant variables, contain a classical component from scalar metric perturbations and a quantum component from inflaton field fluctuations. It has long been known that the effect of cosmological expansion on a quantum field amounts to squeezing. Thus, the entropy of cosmological perturbations can be studied by treating them in the framework of squeezed quantum systems. Entropy of a free quantum field is a seemingly simple yet subtle issue. In this paper, different from previous treatments, we tackle this issue with a fully developed nonequilibrium quantum field theory formalism for such systems. We compute the covariance matrix elements of the parametric quantum field and solve for the evolution of the density matrix elements and the Wigner functions, and, from them, derive the von Neumann entropy. We then show explicitly why the entropy for the squeezed yet closed system is zero, but is proportional to the particle number produced upon coarse-graining out the correlation between the particle pairs. We also construct the bridge between our quantum field-theoretic results and those using the probability distribution of classical stochastic fields by earlier authors, preserving some important quantum properties, such as entanglement and coherence, of the quantum field.