Modulated Perturbations from Instant Preheating after new Ekpyrosis

We present a mechanism to transfer the spectrum of perturbations in a scalar isocurvature field $\xi$ onto the matter content in the radiation era via modulated, instant preheating after ekpyrosis. In this setup, $\xi$ determines the coupling constant relevant for the decay of a preheat matter field into Fermions. The resulting power spectrum is scale invariant if $\xi$ remains close to a scaling solution in new ekpyrotic models of the universe; by construction the spectrum is independent of the detailed physics near the bounce. The process differs from the curvaton mechanism, which has been used recently to revive the ekpyrotic scenario, in that no peculiar behavior of $\xi$ shortly before or during the bounce is needed. In addition, a concrete and efficient realization of reheating after ekpyrosis is provided; this mechanism is not tied to ekpyrotic models, but could equally well be used in other setups, for instance inflationary ones. We estimate non-Gaussianities and find no additional contributions in the most simple realizations, in contrast to models using the curvaton mechanism.Comment: 21 pages; v2 references added, minor clarification

Direct Detection of Primordial Gravitational Waves in a BSI Inflationary Model

We investigate the possibility for a direct detection by future space interferometers of the stochastic gravitational wave (GW) background generated during the inflationary stage in a class of viable $\Lambda$CDM BSI models. At frequencies around $10^{-3}$Hz, maximal values $\Omega_{gw}(\nu)\sim 3\times 10^{-15}$ are found, an improvement of about one order of magnitude compared to single-field, slow-roll inflationary models. This is presumably not sufficient in order to be probed in the near future.Comment: to appear in Phys. Lett. B, (uses LaTeX, 10 pages

Nonlinear superhorizon perturbations in Horava-Lifshitz gravity

We perform a fully nonlinear analysis of superhorizon perturbation in Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz gravity, based on the gradient expansion method. We present a concrete expression for the solution of gravity equations up to the second order in the gradient expansion, and prove that the solution can be extended to any order. The result provides yet another example for analogue of the Vainshtein effect: the nonlinear solution is regular in the limit $\lambda\to 1$ and recovers general relativity coupled to dark matter at low energy. Finally, we propose a definition of nonlinear curvature perturbation ${\cal R}$ in Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz gravity and show that it is conserved up to the first order in the gradient expansion.Comment: 11 page

Transport equations for the inflationary spectral index

We present a simple and efficient method to compute the superhorizon evolution of the spectral index in multifield inflationary models, using transport equation techniques. We illustrate the evolution of n(s) with time for various interesting potentials

Robustness of the inflationary perturbation spectrum to trans-Planckian physics

It is investigated if predictions of the inflationary scenario regarding spectra of scalar and tensor perturbations generated from quantum vacuum fluctuations are robust with respect to a modification of the dispersion law for frequencies beyond the Planck scale. For a large class of such modifications of special and general relativity, for which the WKB condition is not violated at super-high frequencies, the predictions remain unchanged. The opposite possibility is excluded by the absence of large amount of created particles due to the present Universe expansion. Creation of particles in the quantum state minimizing the energy density of a given mode at the moment of Planck boundary crossing is prohibited by the latter argument, too (contrary to creation in the adiabatic vacuum state which is very small now).Comment: Latex, 6 pages; a typo corrected, a reference adde

Deciphering Inflation with Gravitational Waves: Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization vs. Direct Detection with Laser Interferometers

A detection of the primordial gravitational wave background is considered to be the ``smoking-gun '' evidence for inflation. While super-horizon waves are probed with cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization, the relic background will be studied with laser interferometers. The long lever arm spanned by the two techniques improves constraints on the inflationary potential and validation of consistency relations expected under inflation. If gravitational waves with a tensor-to-scalar amplitude ratio greater than 0.01 are detected by the CMB, then a direct detection experiment with a sensitivity consistent with current concept studies should be pursued vigorously. If no primordial tensors are detected by the CMB, a direct detection experiment to understand the simplest form of inflation must have a sensitivity improved by two to three orders of magnitude over current plans.Comment: 6 pages, 2 color figures. replaced with published version. Full resolution figures are available at http://cfcp.uchicago.edu/~hiranya/CMB_BBO

A note on the resonant frequencies of rapidly rotating black holes

I discuss the range of validity of Detweiler's formula for the resonant frequencies of rapidly rotating Kerr black holes. While his formula is correct for extremal black holes, it has also been commonly accepted that it describes very well the resonant frequencies of near extremal black holes, and that therefore there is a large number of modes clustering on the real axis as the black hole becomes extremal. I will show that this last statement is not only incorrect, but that it also does not follow from Detweiler's formula, provided it is handled with due care. It turns out that only the first n << -log{(r_+-r_-)/r_+} modes are well described by that formula, which translates, for any astrophysical black hole, into one or two modes only. All existing numerical data gives further support to this claim. I also discuss some implications of this result for recent investigations on the late-time dynamics of rapidly rotating black holes.Comment: 5 pages, ReVTeX

Perturbations in a regular bouncing Universe

We consider a simple toy model of a regular bouncing universe. The bounce is caused by an extra time-like dimension, which leads to a sign flip of the $\rho^2$ term in the effective four dimensional Randall Sundrum-like description. We find a wide class of possible bounces: big bang avoiding ones for regular matter content, and big rip avoiding ones for phantom matter. Focusing on radiation as the matter content, we discuss the evolution of scalar, vector and tensor perturbations. We compute a spectral index of $n_s=-1$ for scalar perturbations and a deep blue index for tensor perturbations after invoking vacuum initial conditions, ruling out such a model as a realistic one. We also find that the spectrum (evaluated at Hubble crossing) is sensitive to the bounce. We conclude that it is challenging, but not impossible, for cyclic/ekpyrotic models to succeed, if one can find a regularized version.Comment: v3: 10 pages, 1 figure, section III revised, conclusions changed, references added, typos corrected; v4: numerics added, identical with version accepted in PR