Speaker
Description
Cosmic inflation is often described through the dynamics of a scalar field (called the inflaton), slow-rolling in a suitable potential. Quantum fluctuations during inflation can be shown to seed the temperature fluctuations of the CMB and following formation of structure in the Universe. The inflaton field must ultimately be identified with the expectation value of a quantum field, evolving in a quantum effective potential. The shape of this potential is determined by the underlying tree-level potential, dressed by quantum corrections from fluctuations both in the scalar field itself and the background metric. These corrections influence the relation between the slow-roll parameters, which quantify the conditions for slow-roll, and which also enter in observables in the sky. The magnitude of the corrections can be estimated for specific tree-level potentials, of which I discuss two examples.
