On the factor ordering problem in stochastic inflation

Abstract

The stochastic approach to inflation suffers from ambiguities due to the arbitrary choice of the time variable and due to the choice of the factor ordering in the corresponding Fokker-Planck equation. Here it is shown that both ambiguities can be removed if we require that the factor ordering should be set in such a way that physical results are invariant with respect to time reparametrizations. This requirement uniquely selects the so-called Ito factor ordering. Additional ambiguities associated with non-trivial kinetic terms of the scalar fields are also discussed, as well as ways of constraining these ambiguities.