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SUMMARY:On the importance of heavy fields during inflation - Gonzalo A. Pa
 lma (University of Chile)
DTSTART:20120521T120000Z
DTEND:20120521T130000Z
UID:TALK37837@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Camille Bonvin
DESCRIPTION:In this talk I will review and discuss some recent development
 s on the study of inflation\, regarding the possibility that heavy physics
  might have had an active role during inflation. For this\, I will focus o
 n two-field models of inflation characterized by a hierarchy of masses bet
 ween curvature and isocurvature modes. I will show that when the hierarchy
  is large\, a low energy effective field theory (EFT) exists in which only
  curvature modes participate in the dynamics of perturbations. In this EFT
  curvature perturbations exhibit a reduced speed of sound whenever the mul
 ti-field trajectory is subject to a sharp turn in target space. In particu
 lar\, when turns are sharp and sudden\, they are found to generate a varie
 ty of interesting observational effects\, such as large features in the po
 wer spectrum and large non-Gaussianities. I will discuss the relevance of 
 these results for a more refined understanding of inflation within fundame
 ntal theories.
LOCATION:CMS\, Pav.B\, CTC Common Room (B1.19)
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