Snowmass White Paper: The Cosmological Bootstrap

arXiv (Cornell University)

Abstract

This white paper summarizes recent progress in the cosmological bootstrap, an approach to the study of the statistics of primordial fluctuations from consistency with unitarity, locality and symmetry assumptions. We review the key ideas of the bootstrap method, with an eye towards future directions and ambitions of the program. Focusing on recent progress involving de Sitter and quasi-de Sitter backgrounds, we highlight the role of singularities and unitarity in constraining the form of the correlators. We also discuss nonperturbative formulations of the bootstrap, connections to anti-de Sitter space, and potential implications for holography.

Authors 7

1. Daniel Baumann
2. Daniel Green

   University of California San Diego

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Physics , University of California at San Diego , La Jolla , CA 92093 , USA

3. Austin Joyce

   Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology

   Affiliation as printed

   Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics , Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics , University of Chicago , Chicago , IL 60637 , USA

4. Enrico Pajer

   University of Cambridge

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics , University of Cambridge , Wilberforce Road , Cambridge , CB3 0WA , UK

5. Guilherme L. Pimentel Aachen Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics

   Leiden University · Lorentz Center · Institute of Physics · University of Amsterdam

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Physics , University of Amsterdam , Amsterdam , 1098 XH , The Netherlands

   Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics , Leiden University , Leiden , 2333 CA , The Netherlands

6. Charlotte Sleight
   Affiliation as printed

   Centre for Particle Theory and

7. Massimo Taronna