Yuki Watanabe

UV-protected (natural) inflation: primordial fluctuations and non-gaussian features

We consider the UV-protected inflation, where the inflaton potential is obtained by quantum (one-loop) breaking of a global symmetry into a discrete symmetry. In this model, all coupling scales are sub-Planckian. This is achieved by coupling the inflaton kinetic term to the Einstein tensor such that the friction is enhanced gravitationally at high energies. In this respect, this new interaction makes virtually any potential adequate for inflation while keeping the system perturbative unitary. We show that even if the gravitationally enhanced friction intrinsically contains new nonlinearities, the UV-protected inflation (and any similar models) behaves as a single field scenario with red tilted spectrum and potentially detectable gravitational waves. Interestingly enough, we find that non-Gaussianity of the curvature perturbations in the local form are completely dominated by the nonlinear gauge transformation from the spatially flat to uniform-field gauge and/or by parity violating interactions of the inflaton and gauge bosons. In particular, the parity violating interactions may produce detectable non-Gaussianity.

Improved calculation of the primordial gravitational wave spectrum in the standard model

We show that the energy density spectrum of the primordial gravitational waves has characteristic features due to the successive changes in the relativistic degrees of freedom during the radiation era. These changes make the evolution of radiation energy density deviate from the conventional adiabatic evolution, {rho}{sub r}{proportional_to}a{sup -4}, and thus cause the expansion rate of the universe to change suddenly at each transition which, in turn, modifies the spectrum of primordial gravitational waves. We take into account all the particles in the standard model of elementary particles. In addition, free-streaming of neutrinos damps the amplitude of gravitational waves, leaving characteristic features in the energy density spectrum. Our calculations are solely based on the standard model of cosmology and particle physics, and therefore these features must exist. Our calculations significantly improve the previous ones which ignored these effects and predicted a smooth, featureless spectrum.

Breaking of Vainshtein screening in scalar-tensor theories beyond Horndeski

The Horndeski theory of gravity is known as the most general scalar-tensor theory with second-order field equations. Recently, it was demonstrated by Gleyzes et al. that the Horndeski theory can further be generalized in such a way that although field equations are of third order, the number of propagating degrees of freedom remains the same. We study small-scale gravity in the generalized Horndeski theory, focusing in particular on an impact of the new derivative interaction beyond Horndeski on the Vainshtein screening mechanism. In the absence of the quintic galileon term and its generalization, we show that the new interaction does not change the qualitative behavior of gravity outside and near the source: the two metric potentials coincide,

Reheating processes after Starobinsky inflation in old-minimal supergravity

Phi = Psi ;(sim r^{-1})

Self-unitarization of New Higgs Inflation and compatibility with Planck and BICEP2 data

, while the gravitational coupling is given by the cosmological one and hence is time-dependent in general. We find, however, that the gravitational field inside the source shows a novel behavior due to the interaction beyond Horndeski: the gravitational attraction is not determined solely from the enclosed mass and two potentials do not coincide, indicating breaking of the screening mechanism.

Reheating of the universe after inflation with f({phi})R gravity

A bstractWe study reheating processes and its cosmological consequences in the Starobinsky model embedded in the old-minimal supergravity. First, we consider minimal coupling between the gravity and matter sectors in the higher curvature theory, and transform it to the equivalent standard supergravity coupled to additional matter superfields. We then discuss characteristic decay modes of the inflaton and the reheating temperature TR. Considering a simple model of supersymmetry breaking sector, we estimate gravitino abundance from inflaton decay, and obtain limits on the masses of gravitino and supersymmetry breaking field. We find TR ≃ 1.0 × 109 GeV and the allowed range of gravitino mass as 104 GeV ≲ m3/2 ≲ 105 GeV, assuming anomaly-induced decay into the gauge sector as the dominant decay channel.

Genetical identification of coccidia in red-crowned crane, Grus japonensis

In this paper we show that the Germani-Kehagias model of Higgs inflation (or New Higgs Inflation), where the Higgs boson is kinetically non-minimally coupled to the Einstein tensor is in perfect compatibility with the latest Planck and BICEP2 data. Moreover, we show that the tension between the Planck and BICEP2 data can be relieved within the New Higgs inflation scenario by a negative running of the spectral index. Regarding the unitarity of the model, we argue that it is unitary throughout the evolution of the Universe. Weak couplings in the Higgs-Higgs and Higgs-graviton sectors are provided by a large background dependent cut-off scale during inflation. In the same regime, the W and Z gauge bosons acquire a very large mass, thus decouple. On the other hand, if they are also non-minimally coupled to the Higgs boson, their effective masses can be enormously reduced. In this case, the W and Z bosons are no longer decoupled. After inflation, the New Higgs model is well approximated by a quartic Galileon with a renormalizable potential. We argue that this can unitarily create the right conditions for inflation to eventually start.

Multifield formulation of gravitational particle production after inflation

We show that reheating of the universe occurs spontaneously in a broad class of inflation models with

\delta N versus covariant perturbative approach to non-Gaussianity outside the horizon in multifield inflation

f(ensuremath{phi})R

Multi-disformal invariance of non-linear primordial perturbations

gravity (