High Energy Physics Seminar

I will review how future measurements of primordial Non-Gaussianities in the CMB, Large Scale Structure and 21-cm cosmology can probe very heavy particle physics at inflationary energy scales.  Intuitively, the production of heavy particles is due to the "Hawking temperature" of inflationary spacetime, and their detection is via their decay into inflatons. Even greater mass reach is shown to be possible via "chemical potential" enhancement. These mechanisms are applied to plausible targets, namely our most ambitious gauge-Higgs and extra-dimensional theories, such as Orbifold Grand Unification, "dark" sectors, and the Standard Model itself, with particles as exotic as spin-2 Kaluza Klein gravitons. I will show how the Hierarchy "Problem" of the Standard Model may become an asset in this context, allowing it to be more readily probed during inflation via the mechanism of "Heavy-Lifting."

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