Second order perturbations during inflation beyond slow-roll
Abstract
We numerically calculate the evolution of second order cosmological perturbations for an inflationary scalar field without resorting to the slow-roll approximation or assuming large scales. In contrast to previous approaches we therefore use the full non-slow-roll source term for the second order Klein-Gordon equation which is valid on all scales. The numerical results are consistent with the ones obtained previously where slow-roll is a good approximation. We investigate the effect of localised features in the scalar field potential which break slow-roll for some portion of the evolution. The numerical package solving the second order Klein-Gordon equation has been released under an open source license and is available for download.
- Publication:
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Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
- Pub Date:
- October 2011
- DOI:
- 10.1088/1475-7516/2011/10/029
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1103.0912
- Bibcode:
- 2011JCAP...10..029H
- Keywords:
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- Astrophysics - Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics;
- General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology;
- High Energy Physics - Theory
- E-Print:
- v2: version published in JCAP, references added