Inflationary phenomenology of quadratic gravity in the Palatini formulation

TL;DR

This paper explores how quadratic gravity in the Palatini formulation affects inflationary models, showing that the $R^2$ term can modify potentials to align with observations, despite the non-dynamical scalar degree of freedom.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the $R^2$ term in Palatini quadratic gravity can flatten inflaton potentials, enabling previously ruled-out models to be consistent with observational data.

Findings

The $R^2$ term influences the shape of the inflaton potential.

Flattened potentials can match observational constraints.

Previously excluded models become viable with the $R^2$ term.

Abstract

The theory of General Relativity was established on a spacetime manifold equipped with a metric tensor, $(\mathcal{M}_4,\text{g})$, and the connection on $\mathcal{M}_4$ identified with the Levi-Civita one. Even though there are valid reasons to assume a torsionless manifold that preserves the metric, it was shown that dealing away with these assumptions the Levi-Civita condition can be reproduced at the level of equations of motion of GR. It was not long before the equivalence of General Relativity between the two descriptions, known as the Palatini or first-order formalism in which the connection is independent of the metric, and the conventional metric or second-order formalism, was broken for more complicated actions involving higher-order curvature invariants and/or nonminimal couplings between the gravitational and matter sector. Nowadays these types of theories are prominent in modeling inflation where they have found major success. Since the paradigm of inflation is fused with the gravitational degrees of freedom and thus their parametrisation, it is interesting to understand how the predictions of these models differ between the two formulations. One of the outstanding models of inflation is the Starobinsky or quadratic gravity model. However in the Palatini formalism the scalar degree of freedom sourced by the $R^2$ term is nondynamical and is unable to drive an inflationary phase. In order for inflation to be realised in the first-order formalism the Starobinsky model has to be coupled with a fundamental scalar field that will assume the role of the inflaton. In this thesis we investigate different inflationary scenarios, starting with previously ruled-out models, where we find that the $R^2$ term has a significant role in flattening the Einstein-frame inflaton potential and thus giving the opportunity for these models to come in contact with observations.