Condensates and quasiparticles in inflationary cosmology – Daniel Boyanovsky

Date: Mon. February 6th, 2012, 11:30 am-12:30 pm
Location: Rockefeller 221

Correlation functions during inflation feature infrared effects that could undermine a perturbative study. I will discuss self-consistent mechanisms of mass generation that regulates infrared physics, and introduce a method based on quantum optics to obtain the decay width of quantum states. Lack of energy conservation entails that EVERY particle acquires a width as a result of emission and absorption of superhorizon quanta thus becoming “quasiparticles”. BLACKBOARD TALK