Model Independent Signatures of New Physics in the Inflationary Power Spectrum

Abstract

We compute the universal generic corrections to the inflationary power spectrum due to unknown high-energy physics. We arrive at this result via a careful integrating out of massive fields in the "in-in" formalism yielding a consistent and predictive low-energy effective description in time-dependent backgrounds. We find that the power spectrum is universally modified at order H/M, where H is the scale of inflation. This is qualitatively different from the universal corrections in time-independent backgrounds, and it suggests that such effects may be present in upcoming cosmological observations.