PIRSA:14060044 Scientific Series Cosmology

DOI10.48660/14060044

Series: Cosmology and Gravitation

Moffat, J. (2014). Inflation, Variable Speed of Light and BICEP2. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/14060044

Moffat, John. Inflation, Variable Speed of Light and BICEP2. Perimeter Institute, Jun. 12, 2014, https://pirsa.org/14060044 

@misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:14060044,
  doi = {10.48660/14060044},
  url = {https://pirsa.org/14060044},
  author = {Moffat, John},
  keywords = {Cosmology},
  language = {en},
  title = {Inflation, Variable Speed of Light and BICEP2},
  publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
  year = {2014},
  month = {jun},
  note = {PIRSA:14060044 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
}

Abstract

A variable speed of light (VSL) cosmology is developed with a spontaneous breaking of Lorentz invariance in the early universe. A non-minimal electromagnetic coupling to curvature and the resulting quantum electrodynamic vacuum polarization dispersive medium can produce c >> c0 in the early universe, where c0 is the measured speed of light today. Higher derivative curvature contributions to the effective gravitational action and quantum gravity vacuum polarization can produce a dispersive medium and a large increase in the speed of gravitational waves cg >> cg0 in the early universe, where cg0 is the speed of gravitational waves today. The initial value problems of cosmology are solved: the horizon and flatness problems. The model predicts primordial scalar and tensor fluctuation spectral indices ns=0.96 and nt=- 0.04, respectively. The BICEP2 observation of r=0.2 yields r/nt=-5 which is close to the single-field inflationary consistency condition r/nt=-8.

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