Snowmass white paper: The cosmological bootstrap

SciPost Physics Community Reports

Abstract

This white paper summarizes recent progress in the cosmologicalbootstrap, an approach to the study of the statistics of primordialfluctuations from consistency with unitarity, locality and symmetryassumptions. We review the key ideas of the bootstrap method, with aneye towards future directions and ambitions of the program. Focusing onrecent progress involving de Sitter and quasi-de Sitter backgrounds, wehighlight the role of singularities and unitarity in constraining theform of the correlators. We also discuss nonperturbative formulations ofthe bootstrap, connections to anti-de Sitter space, and potentialimplications for holography.

Authors 7

1. Daniel Baumann

   National Taiwan University · Institute of Physics · University of Amsterdam

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Physics, University of Amsterdam

   Leung Center for Cosmology and Particle Astrophysics

   National Taiwan University

   Center for Theoretical Physics, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan

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

   Leung Center for Cosmology and Particle Astrophysics, Taipei 10617, Taiwan

2. Daniel Green

   University of California San Diego

   Affiliation as printed

   University of California, San Diego

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

3. Austin Joyce

   University of Chicago

   Affiliation as printed

   University of Chicago

   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

   University of Cambridge

   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 · Scuola Normale Superiore · Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Pisa · Institute of Physics · University of Amsterdam

   Affiliation as printed

   INFN Sezione di Pisa

   Institute of Physics, University of Amsterdam

   Lorentz Institute

   Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa

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

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

   Scuola Normale Superiore and INFN, Piazza dei Cavalieri 7, 56126, Pisa, Italy

6. Charlotte Sleight

   Durham University · Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Napoli · University of Naples Federico II

   Affiliation as printed

   Durham University

   INFN Napoli

   University of Naples Federico II

   Centre for Particle Theory and Department of Mathematical Sciences, Durham University, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK

   INFN, Sezione di Napoli, Monte S. Angelo, Via Cintia, 80126 Napoli, Italy

7. Massimo Taronna

   Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Napoli · University of Naples Federico II

   Affiliation as printed

   INFN Napoli

   University of Naples Federico II

   INFN, Sezione di Napoli, Monte S. Angelo, Via Cintia, 80126 Napoli, Italy