D. J. Mulryne, J. Noller, N. J. Nunes
Abstract
We calculate the perturbed action, at second and third order, for a massive three-form field minimally coupled to gravity, and use it to explore the observational predictions of three-form inflation. One intriguing result is that the value of the spectral index is nearly independent of the three-form potential, being fixed solely by the number of e-folds of inflation, with ns = 0.97 for the canonical number of 60. Considering the bispectrum, we employ standard techniques to give explicit results for two models, one of which produces a large non-Gaussianity. Finally, we confirm our results by employing a duality relating the three-form theory to a non-canonical scalar field theory and explicitly re-computing results in this dual picture.
Keywords
ination - cosmological: perturbation: theory
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
Volume 2012, Issue 12, Page 016_1
2012 December
