Cosmological Correlators with Double Massive Exchanges: Bootstrap Equation and Phenomenology

TL;DR

This paper presents an exact analytical solution for cosmological correlators involving double massive scalar exchanges using the bootstrap method, revealing significant phenomenological implications for primordial non-Gaussianity and collider signals.

Contribution

It introduces a novel exact solution for seed integrals with double massive exchanges, applicable to any number of fields and masses, with simplified summations and approximate formulas for practical evaluation.

Findings

The bispectrum can be large and compatible with observational bounds.

Double exchange diagrams produce a sizable cosmological collider signal in the squeezed limit.

Phase and flavor oscillations can help distinguish double from single exchange channels.

Abstract

Using the recently developed cosmological bootstrap method, we compute the exact analytical solution for the seed integral appearing in cosmological correlators with double massive scalar exchanges. The result is explicit, valid in any kinematic configuration, and free from spurious divergences. It is applicable to any number of fields' species with any masses. With an appropriate choice of variables, the results contain only single-layer summations. We also propose simple approximate formulas valid in different limits, enabling direct and instantaneous evaluation.Supported by exact numerical results using CosmoFlow, we explore the phenomenology of double massive exchange diagrams. Contrary to single-exchange diagrams with ubiquitous Lorentz-covariant interactions, the size of the cubic coupling constant can be large while respecting perturbativity bounds. Because of this property, the primordial bispectrum from double-exchange diagrams can be as large as, coincidentally, current observational constraints. In addition to being sizable on equilateral configurations, we show that the primordial bispectrum exhibits a large cosmological collider signal in the squeezed limit, making the double massive exchanges interesting channels for the detection of massive primordial fields. We propose to decisively disentangle double-exchange channels from single-exchange ones with cosmological observations by exploiting the phase information of the cosmological collider signal, the inflationary flavor oscillations from multiple fields' species exchanges and the double soft limit in the primordial trispectrum.