Scale-Invariant Curvature Fluctuations from an Extended Semiclassical Gravity
Nicola Pinamonti, Daniel Siemssen
February 20, 2015
We present an extension of the semiclassical Einstein equations which couples n-point correlation functions of a stochastic Einstein tensor to the n-point functions of the quantum stress-energy tensor. We apply this extension to calculate the quantum fluctuations during an inflationary period, where we take as a model a massive conformally coupled scalar field on a perturbed de Sitter space and describe how a renormalization independent, almost-scale-invariant power spectrum of the scalar metric perturbation is produced. Furthermore, we discuss how this model yields a natural basis for the calculation of non-Gaussianities of the considered metric fluctuations.
Keywords:
QFT on curved spacetimes, semiclassical Einstein equation, inflation, cosmology