Searching for Fossil Fields in the Gravity Sector

Abstract

Evidence for the presence of extra fields during inflation may be found in the anisotropies of the scalar and tensor spectra across a vast range of scales. Indeed, beyond the single-field slow-roll paradigm, a long tensor mode can modulate the power spectrum inducing a sizable quadrupolar anisotropy. We investigate how this dynamics plays out for the tensor two-point correlator. The resulting quadrupole stores information on squeezed tensor non-Gaussianities, specifically those sourced by the extra field content and responsible for the breaking of so-called consistency relations. We underscore the potential of anisotropies as a probe of new physics: testable at CMB scales through the detection of B-modes, they are accessible at smaller scales via interferometers and pulsar timing arrays.