Starobinsky inflation
Topic: Astronomy
From HandWiki - Reading time: 3 min
Starobinsky inflation is a modification of general relativity used to explain cosmological inflation.
History
In the Soviet Union, Alexei Starobinsky noted that quantum corrections to general relativity should be important for the early universe. These generically lead to curvature-squared corrections to the Einstein–Hilbert action and a form of f(R) modified gravity. The solution to Einstein's equations in the presence of curvature squared terms, when the curvatures are large, leads to an effective cosmological constant. Therefore, he proposed that the early universe went through an inflationary de Sitter era.[1] This resolved the cosmology problems and led to specific predictions for the corrections to the microwave background radiation, corrections that were then calculated in detail. Starobinsky originally used the semi-classical Einstein equations with free quantum matter fields.[2] However, it was soon realized that the inflation was essentially controlled by the contribution from a squared Ricci scalar in the effective action[3]
- [math]\displaystyle{ S = \frac{1}{2\kappa} \int \left(R + \frac{R^2}{6M^2} \right) \sqrt{\vert g\vert}\,\mathrm{d}^4x, }[/math]
where [math]\displaystyle{ \kappa=8\pi G/c^4 }[/math] and [math]\displaystyle{ R }[/math] is the Ricci scalar. This action corresponds to the potential [math]\displaystyle{ V(\phi) = \Lambda^4 \left(1 - e^{-\sqrt{2/3} \phi/M_p} \right)^2 }[/math] in the Einstein frame. As a result, the inflationary scenario associated to this potential or to an action including an [math]\displaystyle{ R^2 }[/math] term are referred to as Starobinsky inflation. To distinguish, models using the original, more complete, quantum effective action are then called (trace)-anomaly induced inflation.[4][5]
Observables
Starobinsky inflation gives a prediction for the observables of the spectral tilt [math]\displaystyle{ n_s }[/math] and the tensor-scalar ratio [math]\displaystyle{ r }[/math]: [math]\displaystyle{ n_s = 1 - \frac{2}{N}, \quad r = \frac{12}{N^2}, }[/math][6] where [math]\displaystyle{ N }[/math] is the number of e-foldings since the horizon crossing. As [math]\displaystyle{ 50\lt N\lt 60 }[/math], these are compatible with experimental data, with 2018 CMB data from the Planck satellite giving a constraint of [math]\displaystyle{ r\lt 0.064 }[/math] (95% confidence) and [math]\displaystyle{ n_s=0.9649\pm 0.0042 }[/math] (68% confidence).[6]
See also
References
- ↑ Starobinsky, A. A. (December 1979). "Spectrum Of Relict Gravitational Radiation And The Early State Of The Universe". Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics Letters 30: 682. Bibcode: 1979JETPL..30..682S.; Starobinskii, A. A. (December 1979). "Spectrum of relict gravitational radiation and the early state of the universe". Pisma Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. (Soviet Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics Letters) 30: 719. Bibcode: 1979ZhPmR..30..719S.
- ↑ Starobinsky, A.A (1980). "A new type of isotropic cosmological models without singularity". Physics Letters B 91 (1): 99–102. doi:10.1016/0370-2693(80)90670-X. Bibcode: 1980PhLB...91...99S.
- ↑ Vilenkin, Alexander (1985). "Classical and quantum cosmology of the Starobinsky inflationary model". Physical Review D 32 (10): 2511–2521. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.32.2511. PMID 9956022. Bibcode: 1985PhRvD..32.2511V.
- ↑ Hawking, Stephen; Hertog, Thomas; Reall, Harvey (2001). "Trace anomaly driven inflation". Physical Review D 63 (8): 083504. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.63.083504. Bibcode: 2001PhRvD..63h3504H.
- ↑ de Paula Netto, Tibério; Pelinson, Ana; Shapiro, Ilya; Starobinsky, Alexei (2016). "From stable to unstable anomaly-induced inflation". The European Physical Journal C 76 (10): 1–14. doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-016-4390-4. Bibcode: 2016EPJC...76..544N.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Akrami, Y. et al. (2020). "Planck2018 results". Astronomy & Astrophysics 641: A10. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201833887.
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