Beyond perturbation theory in inflation

Abstract: In this talk I will first discuss a motivation why one needs to go beyond perturbation theory (PT) in inflation as going to the tail of the distribution of the primordial fluctuations. Then I will propose that the way to go beyond PT is equivalent to performing a calculation in the semi-classical limit. As an analogy, I will show a simple calculation of the ground-state wavefunction in the semi-classical limit for a quantum mechanical system. After that, I will move to a toy model of inflation which for simplicity involves only derivative couplings. As a result, the wavefunction of the Universe in this semi-classical limit exhibits a non-perturbative behaviour for large coupling limit.

cosmology and nongalactic astrophysicsother condensed matterquantum gasesstrongly correlated electronssuperconductivitygeneral relativity and quantum cosmologyHEP - theory

Audience: researchers in the topic

Carnegie Mellon theoretical physics