VSI Seminar: Sravan Kumar

Title:

Generalized Non-local R^2-like inflation and its Universal predictions

Abstract:

Cosmic inflation is an important paradigm of the early Universe which is so far developed in two equivalent ways, either by geometrical modification of Einstein's general relativity (GR) or by introducing new forms of matter beyond the standard model of particle physics. Starobinsky's R+R^2 inflation based on a geometric modification of GR is one of the most observationally favorable models of cosmic inflation based on a geometric modification of GR. In this talk, I will present how certain logical steps in the view of its UV completion can lead to the emergence of a non-local gravity theory whose action is a generic expansion containing infinite derivatives and also infinite curvatures. Then I will establish how one can perform studies of the early Universe in the context of non-local gravity and present new observational consequences in the scope of primordial non-Gaussianities and gravitational waves. I will discuss in detail how generalized non-local R^2-like inflation can be observationally distinguishable from the local effective field theories of inflation.