# Inflation as an amplifier: the case of Lorentz violation

## TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a specific Lorentz-violating modification of gravity during inflation produces measurable anisotropies in the CMB, allowing extremely tight constraints on the theory's parameters.

## Contribution

It shows that inflation can be used to place unprecedented constraints on Lorentz-violating gravity modifications, surpassing previous bounds by 29 orders of magnitude.

## Key findings

- Lorentz violation during inflation affects CMB anisotropies
- Empirical constraints limit Lorentz-violating coefficients to below 10^{-43}
- Inflation provides a powerful test for modified gravity theories

## Abstract

Modified gravity theories are supposed to incorporate low-energy quantum-gravity effects and, at the same time, they could shed light into the dark matter and dark energy problems. Here we study a particular modification of general relativity where local Lorentz invariance is spontaneously broken and whose physical effects, despite a decade-long effort, were unknown. We show that, during inflation, this modification produces anisotropies that would generate measurable effects on the Cosmic Microwave Background. Then, by using empirical constraints on the B-mode polarization spectrum, we can estimate that the `coefficient' components absolute value have to be smaller than $10^{-43}$. This is a remarkably strong limit, in fact, it is 29 orders of magnitude better than the best constraints on similar coefficients. Thus, we propose that inflation could stringently test other modified gravity theories.