CSL Wave Function Collapse Model as a Mechanism for the Emergence of
  Cosmological Asymmetries in Inflation

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Abstract

As previously discussed in (D. Sudarsky, Int.J.Mod.Phys.D20:509-552, (2011); [arXiv:0906.0315]), the inflationary account for the emergence of the seeds of cosmic structure falls short of actually explaining the generation of primordial anisotropies and inhomogeneities. This description starts from a symmetric background, and invokes symmetric dynamics, so it cannot explain asymmetries. To generate asymmetries, we present an application of the Continuous Spontaneous Localization (CSL) model of wave function collapse (P. Pearle, Phys. Rev. A 39, 2277, (1989); G. C. Ghirardi, P. Pearle and A. Rimini, Phys. Rev. A42, 78 (1990)) in the context of inflation. This modification of quantum dynamics introduces a stochastic non-unitary component to the evolution of the inflaton field perturbations. This leads to passage from a homogeneous and isotropic stage to another, where the quantum uncertainties in the initial state of inflation transmute into the primordial inhomogeneities and anisotropies. We examine requirements for, and show how to achieve, compatibility with the precise observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation.

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Semiclassicality and Decoherence of Cosmological Perturbations

Alexei Starobinsky, David Polarski (1995)

Transition to the semiclassical behaviour and the decoherence process for inhomogeneous perturbations generated from the vacuum state during an inflationary stage in the early Universe are considered both in the Heisenberg and the Schr\"odinger representations to show explicitly that both approaches lead to the same prediction: the equivalence of these quantum perturbations to classical perturbations having stochastic Gaussian amplitudes and belonging to the quasi-isotropic mode. This equivalence and the decoherence are achieved once the exponentially small (in terms of the squeezing parameter \(r_k\)) decaying mode is neglected. In the quasi-classical limit \(|r_k|\to \infty\), the perturbation mode functions can be made real by a time-independent phase rotation, this is shown to be equivalent to a fixed relation between squeezing angle and phase for all modes in the squeezed-state formalism. Though the present state of the gravitational wave background is not a squeezed quantum state in the rigid sense and the squeezing parameters loose their direct meaning due to interaction with the environment and other processes, the standard predictions for the rms values of the perturbations generated during inflation are not affected by these mechanisms (at least, for scales of interest in cosmological applications). This stochastic background still occupies a small part of phase space.

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On the quantum origin of the seeds of cosmic structure

, , (2006)

The current understanding of the quantum origin of cosmic structure is discussed critically. We point out that in the existing treatments a transition from a symmetric quantum state to an (essentially classical) non-symmetric state is implicitly assumed, but not specified or analyzed in any detail. In facing the issue we are led to conclude that new physics is required to explain the apparent predictive power of the usual schemes. Furthermore we show that the novel way of looking at the relevant issues opens new windows from where relevant information might be extracted regarding cosmological issues and perhaps even clues about aspects of quantum gravity.

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The non-adiabatic pressure in general scalar field systems

, (2010)

We discuss the non-adiabatic or entropy perturbation, which controls the evolution of the curvature perturbation in the uniform density gauge, for a scalar field system minimally coupled to gravity with non-canonical action. We highlight the differences between the sound and the phase speed in these systems, and show that the non-adiabatic pressure perturbation vanishes in the single field case, resulting in the conservation of the curvature perturbation on large scales.