Inflationary and pre-inflationary dynamics with the Starobinsky potential

          @misc{ scivideos_PIRSA:17050045,
            doi = {10.48660/17050045},
            url = {https://pirsa.org/17050045},
            author = {Bonga, Beatrice},
            keywords = {Quantum Gravity},
            language = {en},
            title = {Inflationary and pre-inflationary dynamics with the Starobinsky potential},
            publisher = {Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics},
            year = {2017},
            month = {may},
            note = {PIRSA:17050045 see, \url{https://scivideos.org/pirsa/17050045}}
          }
          

Abstract

Inflation is the leading paradigm of the early Universe, according to which the tiny temperature fluctuations observed in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) originate from quantum vacuum fluctuations at very early times. Recent observations show that the Starobinsky potential is favored among the single field inflationary models. However, the calculations that match the data exclude the Planck era. I will explain why this era is important and how using techniques from loop quantum gravity, the effects of this period can be studied. In particular, we find that for a large part of the initial data surface predictions for the power spectrum of the CMB are indistinguishable from predictions neglecting the pre-inflationary era. However, initial conditions exist for which the quantum gravitational corrections to the power spectrum are potentially observable.