The quantum origin of the cosmological structure: an arena for quantum gravity phenomenology

Abstract

I will review the shortcomings of the standard account of the origin of anisotropies and in-homogeneities in inflationary cosmology. I will argue that something beyond the established paradigm of physics in needed for a satisfactory explanation of the process by which the seeds of structure emerge from the inflaton vacuum and will consider the application of a generalization of the ideas of R Penrose about a quantum gravity induced dynamical collapse of the quantum mechanical state of a system as a promising avenue to address the issue. I will show i) that the proposal offers paths to test the viability of rather specific ideas about the mechanism of collapse, ii) that generically it can led to some precise features in the primordial spectrum of density fluctuations, which can in turn be looked for, in the observational data, and used to set bounds on certain aspects the quantum gravity phenomenology, and iii) that it leads to other rather robust predictions that can be confronted with experiments.