Parity violation in the scalar trispectrum: no-go theorems and yes-go examples
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Author(s)
Cabass, Giovanni
Jazayeri, Sadra
Pajer, Enrico
Stefanyszyn, David
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
We derive a set of no-go theorems and yes-go examples for the parity-odd primordial trispectrum of curvature perturbations. We work at tree-level in the decoupling limit of the Effective Field Theory of Inflation and assume scale invariance and a Bunch-Davies vacuum. We show that the parity-odd scalar trispectrum vanishes in the presence of any number of scalar fields with arbitrary mass and any parity-odd scalar correlator vanishes in the presence of any number of spinning fields with massless de Sitter mode functions, in agreement with the findings of Liu, Tong, Wang and Xianyu [1]. The same is true for correlators with an odd number of conformally-coupled external fields. We derive these results using both the (boostless) cosmological bootstrap, in particular the Cosmological Optical Theorem, and explicit perturbative calculations. We then discuss a series of yes-go examples by relaxing the above assumptions one at the time. In particular, we provide explicit results for the parity-odd trispectrum for (i) violations of scale invariance in single-clock inflation, (ii) the modified dispersion relation of the ghost condensate (non-Bunch-Davies vacuum), and (iii) interactions with massive spinning fields. Our results establish the parity-odd trispectrum as an exceptionally sensitive probe of new physics beyond vanilla inflation.
Date Issued
2023-02
Date Acceptance
2023-01-14
Citation
The Journal of High Energy Physics, 2023, 2023 (2)
ISSN
1029-8479
Publisher
SpringerOpen
Journal / Book Title
The Journal of High Energy Physics
Volume
2023
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© The Authors. Open Access . This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
License URL
Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/jhep02(2023)021
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
21
Date Publish Online
2023-02-02