Theory HEP Seminar

Stochastic Inflation Revisited: A Self-Consistent Recursive Approach and Applications

Laurence Perreault Levasseur

University of Cambridge

In this talk, I will review the main ideas underlying stochastic inflation, by introducing the formalism in two independent ways. First I will start from the intuitive picture steming from the equations of motion of the system understudy. I will then introduce a more rigorous approach based on the in-in formalism, and show how the usual set of Langevin equations can emerge from a path integral formulation. With this understanding, we will then formulate a new, recursive method which allows to solve consistently both in slow-roll parameters and in quantum corrections. I will then discuss examples of how this method can be applied to derive modified predictions for cosmological observables in the case of hybrid inflation and inflation on modulated potentials.