Discussions about the landscape of possibilities for treatments of cosmic inflation involving continuous spontaneous loc
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Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Discussions about the landscape of possibilities for treatments of cosmic inflation involving continuous spontaneous localization models Gabriel R. Bengochea1,a , Gabriel León2,3,b , Philip Pearle4,c , Daniel Sudarsky5,d 1
Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio (IAFE), CONICET-Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1428 Buenos Aires, Argentina Grupo de Astrofísica, Relatividad y Cosmología, Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Paseo del Bosque S/N 1900, La Plata, Argentina 3 CONICET, Godoy Cruz 2290, 1425 Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina 4 Emeritus, Department of Physics, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY 13323, USA 5 Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, A.P. 70-543, 04510 Mexico, DF, Mexico
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Received: 13 August 2020 / Accepted: 24 October 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract In this work we consider a wide variety of alternatives opened when applying the continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) dynamical collapse theory to the inflationary era. The definitive resolution of many of the issues discussed here will have to await, not only for a general relativistic CSL theory, but for a fully workable theory of quantum gravity. Our concern here is to explore these issues, and to warn against premature conclusions. This exploration includes: two different approaches to deal with quantum field theory and gravitation, the identification of the collapsegenerating operator and the general nature and values of the parameters of the CSL theory. All the choices connected with these issues have the potential to dramatically alter the conclusions one can draw. We also argue that the incompatibilities found in a recent paper, between the CSL parameter values and the cosmic microwave background observational data, are associated with specific choices made for the extrapolation to the cosmological context of the CSL theory (as it is known to work in non-relativistic laboratory situations) which do not represent the most natural ones.
1 Introduction With the specific interest in explaining the emergence of the seeds of the observed inhomogeneous cosmic structure, generated by the so-called quantum fluctuations, the question
concerning the applicability of spontaneous collapse theories (i.e. modifications of quantum mechanics designed to resolve the so called “measurement problem”)1 to the inflationary account, is a natural one. This is because, on the one hand, in the cosmological context the measurement problem becomes exacerbated.2 On the other hand, without some modification, the usual account of the emergence of those cosmic seeds suffers from serious shortcomings [3]. Various applications involving different versions of the continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) collapse theory [4–6] to the problem were attempted early on [7–10]. In particular, the last three approaches were able to recover the correct cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum by making various assumptions regarding the dep
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