A cosmic microscope for the preheating era

Abstract

A bstract Light fields with spatially varying backgrounds can modulate cosmic preheating, and imprint the nonlinear effects of preheating dynamics at tiny scales on large scale fluctuations. This provides us a unique probe into the preheating era which we dub the “cosmic microscope”. We identify a distinctive effect of preheating on scalar perturbations that turns the Gaussian primordial fluctuations of a light scalar field into square waves, like a diode. The effect manifests itself as local non-Gaussianity. We present a model, “modulated partial preheating”, where this nonlinear effect is consistent with current observations and can be reached by near future cosmic probes.

Topics & Concepts