Signatures of Supersymmetry from the Early Universe

Abstract

Supersymmetry plays a fundamental role in the radiative stability of many inflationary models. Spontaneous breaking of the symmetry inevitably leads to fields with masses of order the Hubble scale during inflation. When these fields couple to the inflaton they produce a unique signature in the squeezed limit of the three-point function of primordial curvature perturbations. In this paper, we make this connection between naturalness, supersymmetry, Hubble-mass degrees of freedom and the squeezed limit precise. To study the physics in a model-insensitive way, we develop a supersymmetric effective theory of inflation. We use the effective theory to classify all possible interactions between the inflaton and the additional fields, and determine which ones naturally allow large non-Gaussianities when protected by supersymmetry. Finally, we discuss the tantalizing prospect of using cosmological observations as a probe of supersymmetry.