Journal article
Inflation from dynamical projective connections
Physical review. D, Vol.106(8), 084049
10/27/2022
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.106.084049
Abstract
We show how the recently developed string-inspired, projectively invariant gravitational model Thomas -Whitehead gravity (TW gravity) naturally gives rise to a field acting as the inflaton. In the formulation of TW gravity, a field Dab is introduced into the projective connection components and is related to a rank-two tensor field Pab. Through the dynamical action of TW gravity, in terms of projective curvature, the tensor field Pab acquires dynamics. By decomposing Pab into its trace and traceless degrees of freedom, and choosing the connection to be Levi-Civita, we demonstrate that TW gravity contains a nonminimally coupled scalar field with a specific potential. Considering only the trace degrees of freedom, we demonstrate that the scalar field acts as an inflaton in the slow-roll approximation. We find a range of values for the parameters introduced by TW gravity that fit the experimental constraints of the most recent cosmological data.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Inflation from dynamical projective connections
- Creators
- Muhammad Abdullah - Bates CollegeCalvin Bavor - Colorado Mesa UniversityBiruk Chafamo - Bates CollegeXiaole Jiang - Bates CollegeMuhammad Hamza Kalim - Bates CollegeKory Stiffler - Brown UniversityCatherine A. Whiting - Colorado Mesa University
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Physical review. D, Vol.106(8), 084049
- DOI
- 10.1103/PhysRevD.106.084049
- ISSN
- 2470-0010
- eISSN
- 2470-0029
- Publisher
- Amer Physical Soc
- Number of pages
- 17
- Grant note
- Bates College Ford Foundation Professorship of Physics at Brown University
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 10/27/2022
- Academic Unit
- Physics and Astronomy
- Record Identifier
- 9984936616302771
Metrics
1 Record Views