Renormalization of the primordial inflationary power spectra

Abstract

It has been suggested that the effects of renormalization significantly reduce the amplitude of the inflationary spectra at scales measurable in the cosmic microwave background. Via a gauge-invariant analysis, we compute the renormalized scalar and tensor power spectra and follow their evolution in an inflating universe that undergoes a transition to an FRW phase with a growing horizon. For perturbations originating from Minkowski vacuum fluctuations, we show that the standard prediction for the spectra on superhorizon scales is a late-time attractor, while they are UV finite at all times. Our result is independent of the equation of state after inflation, showing that the standard prediction is fully robust.