The Exact and Approximate Tales of Boost-Breaking Cosmological Correlators

TL;DR

This paper advances the theoretical understanding of cosmological correlators by deriving the most general boost-breaking seed correlator involving massive spinning particles, and introduces a saddle-point approximation method for analyzing collider signals.

Contribution

It computes the complete tree-level catalogue of boost-breaking correlators and develops a saddle-point method for accurate, intuitive approximations of collider signals.

Findings

Derived the most general boost-breaking seed correlator.

Introduced a saddle-point approximation method for collider signals.

Provided a complete shape template for upcoming surveys.

Abstract

Cosmological correlators offer a remarkable window into the high-energy physics governing Universe's earliest moments, with the tantalising prospect of discovering new particles. However, extracting new physics from these observables requires both precise theoretical predictions of inflationary theories and accurate, analytical templates suitable for data analysis throughout parameter and kinematic spaces. In this paper, we extend the current analytical results by computing the most general boost-breaking seed correlator mediated by the tree-level exchange of a massive spinning particle. We derive the result using two complementary approaches, bootstrapping from boundary differential equations, and direct spectral integration. Both representations are packaged as a single partially resummed series that converges in all physical kinematics. Computing this correlator marks a milestone for carving out the space of all boost-breaking correlators, and therefore completes the tree-level catalogue. We then introduce a general procedure to obtain accurate approximations for cosmological collider signals based on the saddle-point method. This approach allows for a clear physical intuition of various signals hidden in correlators, as the bulk physics is made manifest through the location of these saddles in the complex time plane, which depend on the external kinematics. Evaluating the time integrals at these saddles yields results given as elementary functions that remain valid beyond soft limits and provide intuitive control over both the signal shape and amplitude. We demonstrate the power of this method in both de Sitter-invariant and boost-breaking scenarios, and uncover novel refined waveform and strength dependence for oscillatory signals from massive fields. We provide a complete cosmological collider shape template capturing all boost-breaking effects for upcoming cosmological surveys.