Implications of Broken Symmetry for Superhorizon Conservation Theorems in Cosmology

TL;DR

This paper challenges the conventional assumption that super-horizon perturbations remain unaffected by sub-horizon processes, suggesting that unknown intervening physics could influence cosmological observations and interpretations.

Contribution

It demonstrates that super-horizon conservation theorems can be broken by symmetry considerations, impacting the reliability of inflationary predictions.

Findings

Super-horizon perturbations may be influenced by sub-horizon physics.

Conventional assumptions about perturbation conservation are not always valid.

Intervening processes could complicate cosmological data interpretation.

Abstract

Inflation produces super-horizon sized perturbations that ultimately return within the horizon and are thought to form the seeds of all observed large scale structure in the Universe. But inflationary predictions can only be compared with present day observations if, as conventional wisdom dictates, they remain unpolluted by subsequent sub-horizon causal physical processes and therefore remain immune from the vicissitudes of unknown universal dynamics in the intervening period. Here we demonstrate that conventional wisdom need not be correct, and as a result cosmological signatures arising from intervening unknown non-inflationary processes may confuse the interpretation of observational data today.