Large non-Gaussianities in the Effective Field Theory Approach to Single-Field Inflation: the Trispectrum

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the trispectrum of curvature perturbations in single-field inflation using effective field theory, revealing new distinctive shapes and the potential for large non-Gaussian signals due to curvature-generated interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of the inflationary trispectrum within the effective field theory framework, highlighting new shape features and symmetry properties of curvature interactions.

Findings

Curvature-generated interactions can produce significant trispectrum amplitudes.

Distinctive shape-function features differentiate these interactions from other models.

Symmetries constrain the form of the interactions, allowing large non-Gaussianities.

Abstract

We perform the analysis of the trispectrum of curvature perturbations generated by the interactions characterizing a general theory of single-field inflation obtained by effective field theory methods. We find that curvature-generated interaction terms, which can in general give an important contribution to the amplitude of the four-point function, show some new distinctive features in the form of their trispectrum shape-function. These interesting interactions are invariant under some recently proposed symmetries of the general theory and, as shown explicitly, do allow for a large value of the trispectrum.