Speaker: David Wands
Location: University of Southampton, GR group
A standard picture has emerged for the origin of structure from quantum vacuum fluctuations during a period of inflation in the very early universe. The distribution of primordial density perturbations (and possibly gravitational waves) can thus be used to probe the physics of inflation. Vacuum fluctuations of free fields give rise to a Gaussian distribution of fluctuations on large (super-Hubble) scales. I will discuss recent work which has focussed on deviations from the simplest Gaussian distribution of primordial density perturbations. Primordial non-Gaussianity could reveal the role of sub-Hubble interactions during inflation, or additional light fields on super-Hubble scales.