dc.contributor.author | Kenton, Zachary | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2017-09-26T13:02:55Z | |
dc.date.available | 2017-09-26T13:02:55Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2017-07-24 | |
dc.date.submitted | 2017-09-26T12:36:22.036Z | |
dc.identifier.citation | Kenton. Z. 2017. Inflation: Connecting Theory with Observables. Queen Mary University of London | en_US |
dc.identifier.uri | http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/25900 | |
dc.description | PhD | en_US |
dc.description.abstract | Information about the very early universe can be accessed from observations of the
cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation and the later formation of large-scale
structure (LSS) that are produced from cosmological perturbations of the early universe.
The most developed theoretical explanation for the origin of these perturbations
is the theory of inflation, in which the early universe undergoes a period of accelerated
expansion, amplifying quantum fluctuations to macroscopic size, which act as the seeds
for the CMB anisotropies and the cosmic web of the LSS. The work in this thesis aims
to connect the theory of inflation to properties of these observables in a highly detailed
way, suitable for future high-precision astronomical surveys. After some introductory
review chapters, we begin with new research on a study of inflation from string theory,
deriving an observably-large value of the tensor-to-scalar ratio, which had been previously
difficult to achieve theoretically. The next study investigates the link between the
observed CMB power asymmetry and non-Gaussianity, including a novel non-zero value
for the trispectrum. Next we study soft limits of non-Gaussian inflationary correlation
functions, focussing first on the squeezed limit of the bispectrum and then generalizing
to soft limits of higher-point correlation functions, giving results valid for multi-fi eld
models of inflation. | en_US |
dc.description.sponsorship | STFC Studentship | en_US |
dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
dc.publisher | Queen Mary University of London | en_US |
dc.rights | The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author | |
dc.subject | Physics and Astronomy | en_US |
dc.subject | String Theory | en_US |
dc.subject | cosmic microwave background | en_US |
dc.subject | inflation | en_US |
dc.subject | large-scale structure | en_US |
dc.title | Inflation: Connecting Theory with Observables | en_US |
dc.type | Thesis | en_US |