Abstract
Abstract
Heavy particles with masses much bigger than the inflationary Hubble scale H*, can get non-adiabatically pair produced during inflation through their couplings to the inflaton. If such couplings give rise to time-dependent masses for the heavy particles, then following their production, the heavy particles modify the curvature perturbation around their locations in a time-dependent and scale non-invariant manner. This results into a non-trivial spatial profile of the curvature perturbation that is preserved on superhorizon scales and eventually generates localized hot or cold spots on the CMB. We explore this phenomenon by studying the inflationary production of heavy scalars and derive the final temperature profile of the spots on the CMB by taking into account the subhorizon evolution, focusing in particular on the parameter space where pairwise hot spots (PHS) arise. When the heavy scalar has an $$ \mathcal{O} $$
O
(1) coupling to the inflaton, we show that for an idealized situation where the dominant background to the PHS signal comes from the standard CMB fluctuations themselves, a simple position space search based on applying a temperature cut, can be sensitive to heavy particle masses M0/H* ∼ $$ \mathcal{O} $$
O
(100). The corresponding PHS signal also modifies the CMB power spectra and bispectra, although the corrections are below (outside) the sensitivity of current measurements (searches).
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Reference54 articles.
1. D. Baumann, Inflation, in Theoretical Advanced Study Institute in Elementary Particle Physics: Physics of the Large and the Small, (2011), pp. 523-6S6, DOI [arXiv:0907.5424] [INSPIRE].
2. Planck collaboration, Planck 2018 results. X. Constraints on inflation, Astron. Astrophys. 641 (2020) A10 [arXiv:1807.06211] [INSPIRE].
3. N.D. Birrell and P.C.W. Davies, Quantum Fields in Curved Space, Cambridge Monographs on Mathematical Physics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge U.K. (19S4) [ DOI] [INSPIRE].
4. S. Weinberg, Adiabatic modes in cosmology, Phys. Rev. D 67 (2003) 123504 [astro-ph/0302326] [INSPIRE].
5. D. Wands, K.A. Malik, D.H. Lyth and A.R. Liddle, A New approach to the evolution of cosmological perturbations on large scales, Phys. Rev. D 62 (2000) 043527 [astro-ph/0003278] [INSPIRE].
Cited by
4 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献