Measures in Mutlifield Inflation

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the dynamics of multifield inflation models with quadratic potentials, using a phase space measure to estimate the probability of observational agreement, finding high likelihood especially as the number of fields increases.

Contribution

It introduces a measure on phase space for multifield inflation models and calculates probabilities of observational agreement, extending to models with many fields.

Findings

High probability (over 98%) for two-field models to match observations.

Near certainty (approaching 100%) as the number of fields increases.

Inflationary attractors are confirmed in phase space for these models.

Abstract

We examine the classical dynamics of multifield inflation models with quadratic potentials. Such models are shown to have inflationary attractors in phase space, consistent with the stretching of phase space trajectories along the volume factor of the universe during inflation. Using the symplectic structure associated with Hamiltonian systems we form a measure on the phase space, as initially proposed by Gibbons, Hawking and Stewart. This is used to calculate lower bounds on the probabilities of observational agreement (i.e. the probability the model gives a value for the spectral index within the region $n_{s}=0.968\pm{0.006}$) for equal mass two and three field models with quadratic potentials, giving values of 0.982 and 0.997 respectively. We derive the measure for a general $N$-field model and argue that as the number of fields approaches infinity, the probability of observational agreement approaches one.