Cosmological Collider Physics and the Curvaton

Abstract: In this talk, I will analyze primordial non-Gaussianity (NG) signatures of extremely heavy particles within a simple alternative to the standard inflationary paradigm, namely the curvaton scenario, where the primordial fluctuations and the inflationary spacetime expansion are sourced by the curvaton and the inflaton fields, respectively. I will describe how this scenario can allow for orders of magnitude larger heavy-particle mediated NG compared to those in standard inflation, and also describe a simple model in which particles with masses up to 50 times larger than Hubble scale can still lead to observable on-shell NG signals which would have been completely negligible in the standard scenario. This brings several well-motivated particle physics signatures within the reach of the Cosmological Collider program which aims to do on-shell mass and spin spectroscopy of Hubble-scale particles during inflation.

Recorded Video

Paper: 1908.11378

cosmology and nongalactic astrophysicsgeneral relativity and quantum cosmology

Audience: advanced learners

( paper | slides | video )

---

CosmoConβ - Cosmology from Home

Series comments: Cosmology from Home is an online cosmology conference. One of its features are pre-recorded talks, publicly available at its YouTube channel.

---