text:
# Spontaneous Pseudospin Spiral Order in the Bilayer Quantum Hall Systems

## I Introduction

Bilayer quantum Hall systems at total filling factor $`\nu _T=1`$ exhibit one of the most interesting many-body correlation effects: spontaneous interlayer phase coherence, which is solely caused by the Coulomb interaction in the limit of zero interlayer tunneling. Recently this phenomenon has received drastic experimental support by Spielman et al. Spielman , who discovered a strong enhancement in the zero-bias interlayer tunneling conductance for interlayer distance $`d<d_c1.83l_0`$ in the regime of very little tunneling, where $`l_0=\sqrt{\mathrm{}c/eB}`$ is the magnetic length. These experiments strongly indicated a presence of spontaneous interlayer coherence at small interlayer distances.

The ground state in the limit of zero interlayer distance can be shown to be spontaneously interlayer phase coherent due to layer symmetry. One of the most convenient way to see this is to use the pseudospin representation in which the top (bottom) layer is denoted as pseudospin $``$ ($``$). In the limit of zero interlayer separation, there is exact pseudospin SU(2) symmetry so that our bilayer system at $`\nu _T=1`$ with pseudospin can be exactly mapped onto a single layer system $`\nu =1`$ with real spin. Then, it is straightforward to see that the ground state should be a pseudospin ferromagnet in order to reduce the Coulomb energy cost, i.e. Hund’s rule. On the other hand, it has been known that, in the limit of large interlayer separation, the ground state is composed of two split composite fermion Fermi seas Jain ; Kalmeyer ; HLR ; Scarola .

Therefore, it is clear that there should be a quantum phase transition at a critical interlayer distance $`d_c`$ since the ground states at small and large interlayer separations are not adiabatically connected. However, it is not at all clear what happens near $`d_c`$. In spite of intense theoretical efforts in the past, the true nature of phase transition near $`d_c`$ has been elusive. Analytical approaches based on Hatree-Fock theories Fertig ; MacDonald  were not able to reliably treat strong quantum fluctuations near the phase transition, which led to the erroneous prediction of broken translational symmetry. On the other hand, analytic approaches utilizing effective field theories Moon ; Yang  were not directly based on the microscopic Hamiltonian of the many-body Coulomb interaction. So its validity should be justified by other means such as exact diagonalization. In particular, mapping of the original many-body Coulomb Hamiltonian to a spin model Hamiltonian is not expected to be valid near the critical interlayer separation. Previous numerical studies based on exact diagonalization He ; Schliemann , however, did not take into account fundamental fluctuations of interlayer number difference due to intrinsic, quantum-mechanical uncertainty in layer indices. Consequently those studies could not provide any direct information related to spontaneous interlayer phase coherence.

It is crucial at this point to distinguish between pseudospin ferromagnetic order and interlayer phase coherence. There is no fundamental reason to believe that they are identical because the interlayer phase coherence is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition for pseudospin ferromagnetism. We will show in this article that, at intermediate interlayer distances, there is another sort of long-range interlayer phase coherence due to pseudospin spiral ordering. It should be emphasized that this pseudospin spiral order is spontaneous in that it exists solely because of the Coulomb interaction without any external parallel magnetic field. The formation of pseudospin spiral order has been considered previously in the presence of parallel magnetic field Yang ; Demler .

This article is organized as follows. We will begin by defining the Hamiltonian of bilayer quantum Hall systems in Sec. II. The pseudospin magnetization is computed as a function of interlayer distance $`d`$ in the limit of zero interlayer tunneling in Sec. III where the intrinsic, quantum-mechanical fluctuation of interlayer number difference is fully taken into account, based on the analogy with superconductivity. Defined as the point where the pseudospin ferromagnetic order is destroyed, the critical interlayer distance $`d_c`$ is reliably determined. In Sec. IV we focus on the nature of the instability which destroys pseudospin ferromagnetic order at $`d_c`$. We will show that the instability is due to the formation of pseudospin spiral order which is manifested in the lowest energy excitations. By computing a new order parameter for pseudospin spiral, we will show in Sec. V that the ground state itself has the pseudospin spiral order. Finally, it is argued in Section VI that a signature of the phase transition from pseudospin ferromagnetic order to our predicted pseudospin spiral order may have been already observed experimentally.

## II Hamiltonian

Let us begin by writing the Hamiltonian for the bilayer quantum Hall systems:

$$H=H_t+\widehat{P}_{LLL}V_{Coul}\widehat{P}_{LLL}$$
(1)
where $`\widehat{P}_{LLL}`$ is the lowest Landau level (LLL) projection operator. $`V_{Coul}`$ represents the usual Coulomb interaction between electrons:

$$\frac{V_{Coul}}{e^2/ϵl_0}=\underset{i<j}{}\frac{1}{r_{ij}}+\underset{k<l}{}\frac{1}{r_{kl}}+\underset{i,k}{}\frac{1}{\sqrt{r_{ik}^2+(d/l_0)^2}}$$
(2)
where $`l_0=\sqrt{\mathrm{}c/eB}`$ is the magnetic length, $`d`$ is the interlayer distance, and $`r_{ij}`$ is the lateral separation between the i-th and j-th electrons. In the above we have used a pseudospin representation to distinguish the top ($``$) and the bottom ($``$) layers. In general, we define the pseudospin operator as follows:

$$𝐒\frac{1}{2}\underset{m}{}c_{ma}^{}\stackrel{}{\sigma }_{ab}c_{mb},$$
(3)
where $`\sigma `$ is the usual Pauli matrix, and $`m`$ denotes the LLL orbital index. Note that $`S_z`$ is half the electron number difference between the two layers, and $`S_x`$ is associated with interlayer tunneling. We take the real spin to be fully polarized.

The tunneling Hamiltonian $`H_t`$ in Eq.(1) can be written as:

$$H_t=\frac{t}{2}\underset{m}{}\left(c_m^{}c_m+c_m^{}c_m\right)=tS_x,$$
(4)
where $`t`$ is the single particle interlayer tunneling gap. Although Eq.(4) is valid for general $`t`$, we are interested only in the limit of zero interlayer tunneling, i.e. $`t/(e^2/ϵl_0)0`$, which is appropriate when considering spontaneous interlayer coherence (note that the $`t0`$ limit is not the same as the $`t=0`$ situation). We analyze the Hamiltonian in Eq.(1) by using exact diagonalization (via a modified Lanczos method) in the torus geometry torus .

## III Spontaneous pseudospin magnetization

As mentioned in the beginning, it will be shown that there is a new long-range interlayer phase coherence due to pseudospin spiral order at sufficiently large $`d`$. But, first, we should determine the critical interlayer distance, $`d_c`$, at which pseudospin ferromagnetic order terminates. Of course, the most natural order parameter for the pseudospin ferromagnetic order is the pseudospin magnetization in the $`x`$-direction: $`S_x`$.

It is tempting to apply exact diagonalization techniques to finite systems with fixed number of electrons in each layer. But, $`S_x`$ changes the interlayer number difference by unity ($`\mathrm{\Delta }S_z=\pm 1`$) so that the ground state expectation value is precisely zero when computed naively without any explicit interlayer tunneling. This problem has been addressed in an ad hoc manner by introducing explicit interlayer tunneling Schliemann , which, however, severely obscures the effect of spontaneous phase coherence and may produce misleading results. The real solution is to realize that there is intrinsic, quantum-mechanical uncertainty in the layer index of electrons at small interlayer distance (even in the limit of zero tunneling) so that the true ground state $`|\psi `$ is a linear combination of various states with different $`S_z`$:

$$|\psi =\underset{M}{}\lambda _M|\varphi _M,$$
(5)
where $`|\varphi _M`$ is the lowest energy state with $`S_z=M`$, $`\lambda _M`$ is a sharply peaked function of $`M`$ with width $`𝒪(\sqrt{N})`$, and $`N`$ is the number of electrons. It is important to remember that even the Halperin (1,1,1) state, $`\psi _{(1,1,1)}`$, has $`\lambda _M\mathrm{exp}(2M^2/N)`$, which can be proved by analyzing the following, explicit wavefunction including both the orbital and pseudospin part 111 :

$$|\psi _{(1,1,1)}=\underset{m}{}\left[\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(c_m^{}+c_m^{})\right]|0.$$
(6)
$`\psi _{(1,1,1)}`$ is the exact ground state at $`d=0`$. Because it can be exactly mapped onto the BCS wavefunction, it is fruitful to consider an analogy with the BCS theory for general $`d`$. Following the BCS theory, one can compute the pseudospin magnetization $`S_x`$ as follows:

$`\psi |S_x|\psi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{M,M^{}}{}}\lambda _M\lambda _M^{}\varphi _M^{}|S_x|\varphi _M`$ (7)
$``$ $`\varphi _{M^{}+1}|S_x|\varphi _M^{}+\varphi _{M^{}1}|S_x|\varphi _M^{}`$
$``$ $`2\varphi _{M^{}+1}|S_x|\varphi _M^{}`$
where the last two step are justified in the thermodynamic limit since $`\lambda _M`$ is sharply peaked at $`M=M^{}`$. Although $`S_x`$ should be exactly $`N/2`$ at $`d=0`$ in the thermodynamic limit due to the exact pseudospin SU(2) symmety, there are some finite-system size corrections. After some algebra on the (1,1,1) state, Eq.(7) shows that $`\psi _{(1,1,1)}|S_x|\psi _{(1,1,1)}`$ is $`(N+1)/2`$ for N odd ($`M^{}=1/2`$), and is $`\sqrt{N(N+2)}/2`$ for N even ($`M^{}=0`$). Therefore, the pseudospin magnetization should be scaled as $`N+1`$ ($`\sqrt{N(N+2)}`$) for $`N`$ odd (even).

Fig.1 shows the pseudospin magnetization per particle (defined in Eq.(7)) as a function of $`d/l_0`$ for various numbers of electrons. As conventional in finite system analysis, the critical interlayer distance can be obtained from the inflection point of $`S_x`$: $`d_c1.5l_0`$. Although $`d_c`$ was estimated to be around $`1.5l_0`$ previously in various approaches, it should be emphasized that the pseudospin magnetization $`S_x`$ is computed for the first time in this article without any interlayer tunneling. And therefore $`d_c`$ is reliably determined without any ambiguity.

## IV Pseudospin spiral instability

We now address the nature of instability causing the destruction of pseudospin ferromagnetic order. This question is, in turn, directly related to the nature of the new ground state at $`d>d_c`$. To be specific, we consider the lowest energy excitations which are responsible for the ground state instability. Fig.2 shows the dispersion curves of the lowest energy excitations at $`d/l_0=0.5`$ and $`1.5`$ for a finite system with the total number of electrons $`N=13`$ and the number of pseudospin-up electrons $`N_{}=7`$ (or $`N_{}=6`$). There are several points to be emphasized.

First, there is clearly a linearly dispersing Goldstone mode at small interlayer distances, such as $`d/l_0=0.5`$. However, $`withinnumericalaccuracy`$regarding the discreteness of finite-system wavevectors, the Goldstone mode seems to vanish for $`dd_c`$, which coincides with the destruction of pseudospin ferromagnetic order Nonlocal . Consistent with the conclusion from $`S_x`$, this shows that the ground state undergoes a phase transition around $`d=d_c`$.

Second, contrary to the prediction of the random phase approximation (RPA) theory Fertig , there is no softening of the dispersion curve (roton) at any finite momentum for any interlayer distance. Remember that the RPA theory predicts a roton around $`kl_01.4`$, which was believed to cause an instability toward charge density wave order. This already shows that previous theories have some serious flaws in describing the phase transition at $`d=d_c`$. We will show in the next paragraph that there are completely different low-energy excitations at large $`d/l_0`$.

Third, several previous numerical studies Moon ; Chakraborty  were unfortunately based on the exact diagonalization of $`N=8`$ system, which, under careful investigation comment1 , can be shown to predict a Wigner crystal at large $`d`$ rather than a quantum Hall liquid, which is a finite-system artifact of boundary condition and special number of electrons.

Fourth, these lowest-excitation energies are exactly zero in the $`d\mathrm{}`$ limit where there is no interaction between electrons with different pseudospins.

However, the most crucial aspect of the dispersion curve is that there are completely new low-energy excitations due to the pseudospin spiral order, which are denoted by arrows in Fig.2. The lowest energy state in the momentum channel $`𝐤l_0=\sqrt{2\pi /N}(N_{},0)`$ (denoted by arrows in Fig.2) begins to be ripped out of the well-defined dispersion curve at $`d/l_00.5`$, and it becomes completely separated from all the other excitations at $`d/l_01.5`$ so that it becomes really the lowest energy excitation among all momentum channels. The same behavior is found in all studied systems with different values of $`N`$ and $`N_{}`$, with exception of the $`N=8`$ system due to a finite-size artifact as mentioned in the above. Note that there are three other degenerate excitations in the momentum channels $`𝐤l_0=\sqrt{2\pi /N}(N_{},0)`$, $`\sqrt{2\pi /N}(0,N_{})`$, and $`\sqrt{2\pi /N}(0,N_{})`$ due to reflection symmetries and periodic boundary conditions of torus geometry. These peculiar excitations are completely different from usual rotons because (i) they form isolated points rather than a part of conventional dispersion curve, and (ii) their momentum increases as $`|𝐤|l_0\sqrt{N}`$, which diverges in the thermodynamic limit. We will show later that these peculiar properties are precisely the properties of pseudospin spiral state.

In order to understand why these excitations are the pseudospin spiral states, it would be best if we first examine the following pseudospin spiral wavefunction:

$$|\psi _{spiral}(n)=\underset{m}{}\left[\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(c_{m+n,}^{}+c_m^{})\right]|0$$
(8)
where $`m`$ denotes the linear momentum in the Landau gauge, i.e., $`p_x=2\pi m/L`$ and $`L`$ is the linear system size (note that $`L=l_0\sqrt{2\pi N}`$ at $`\nu _T=1`$). We will show later in Fig.3 by explicitly computing the overlap between $`|\psi _{spiral}(n=1)`$ and the lowest-energy excitations (denoted by arrows in Fig.2) that the lowest-energy excitations are the pseudospin spiral states. But, first, we would like to emphasize that the pseudospin spiral state $`|\psi _{spiral}(n)`$ is the exact ground state in the presence of parallel magnetic field Yang . A surprising result of this article is that, even without parallel magnetic field, spiral states are the lowest energy excitations which cause the instability of pseudospin ferromagnetic order.

To elucidate the physical meaning of pseudospin spiral state, examine Eq.(8) which reveals that $`|\psi _{spiral}`$ contains diagonal interlayer correlations between the states with $`p_x=2\pi (m+n)/L`$ and $`2\pi m/L`$. Remember that the interlayer correlation between $`p_x=2\pi (m+n)/L`$ and $`2\pi m/L`$ is identical to the diagonal interlayer correlation between electrons with different pseudospins which are separated laterally in the $`y`$-direction by $`nl_0\sqrt{2\pi /N}`$. In turn, this diagonal interlayer correlation is physically equivalent to the pseudospin spiral order with spiraling period of $`L/n`$ because the pseudospin part of wavefunction is essentially given by

$$\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(\begin{array}{c}e^{i\frac{2\pi n}{L}x}\\ 1\end{array}\right).$$
(9)
Pseudospin spiral excitations (and therefore the diagonal interlayer correlation) are schematically depicted in Fig.4.

Now we compute the momentum of pseudospin spiral states by directly applying the magnetic translation operator onto $`|\psi _{spiral}(n)`$. The explicit algebra shows that the momentum of $`\psi _{spiral}(n)`$ is $`|𝐤|l_0=nN_{}\sqrt{2\pi /N}`$ which is exactly the momentum of the lowest-energy excitation seen in Fig.2 if $`n=1`$. Note that the momentum of this pseudospin spiral state is actually proportional to its spiraling period. That is the reason why the momentum of pseudospin spiral state with long spiraling period diverges in the thermodynamic limit. Similarly, we can explain why the pseudospin spiral state occurs in an isolated momentum channel. Consider two pseudospin spiral states with long period, say $`n=1`$ and $`n=2`$, whose momenta differ by a factor proportional to $`\sqrt{N}/l_0`$. Therefore, the pseudospin spiral states with two different long spiraling periods do not occur in adjacent momenta.

It is important to note that $`|\psi _{spiral}(n=1)`$ is the pseudospin spiral excitation in the limit of long spiraling period ($`=L`$), which initiates the destruction of pseudospin ferromagnetic order. Therefore, it may be indicative of a second order phase transition comment2 .

As mentioned earlier, Fig.3 shows the overlap between the pseudospin spiral state $`|\psi _{spiral}(n=1)`$ in Eq.(8) and the lowest-energy excited state with $`𝐤l_0=\sqrt{2\pi /N}(N_{},0)`$ comment3 . As one can see, the overlap is high overall at small $`d/l_0`$, and is very close to unity ($`0.97`$) especially around $`d/l_0=0.5`$ which coincides with the point where $`S_x`$ begins to deviate from the fully saturated value of $`1/2`$. This shows that the instability of pseudospin ferromagnetic order is indeed caused by pseudospin spiral order.

It should be noted that, though the overlap is lowered at larger $`d/l_0`$, the low energy excitation is in general adiabatically connected to the pseudospin spiral state. In fact, the reason for lower overlaps at larger $`d/l_0`$ is that our trial wavefunction in Eq.(8) is not very accurate anymore for larger $`d/l_0`$ since it is based on the assumption that the ground state is the (1,1,1) state. Of course, the ground state itself is affected by the pseudospin spiral instability which, after all, destroys the pseudospin ferromagnetic order at the critical interlayer distance. Therefore, it would be satisfactory if, in addition to the evidence due to the low energy excitation, one can prove directly that the ground state has the pseudospin spiral order at $`dd_c`$. The next section will be devoted to the pseudospin spiral order in the ground state.

## V Pseudospin spiral order in the ground state

It is conjectured that the ground state at large $`d`$ is in fact a bound state of two pseudospin spiral states with opposite winding direction, i.e. a bound state of (b) and (c) in Fig.4, which requires a complicated interaction between the two spiral states (note that this conjecture is consistent with the fact that the ground state itself does not break translational symmetry). So instead of constructing a trial wavefunction we take a more transparent approach by defining a new order parameter which measures the pseudospin spiral order (or equivalently the diagonal interlayer correlation):

$$T_n\frac{1}{2}\underset{m}{}\left(c_{m+n,}^{}c_m+c_m^{}c_{m+n,}\right)$$
(10)
The following properties of $`T_n`$ are worth mentioning. (i) $`T_n`$ is a generalization of pseudospin magnetization $`S_x`$ which measures the vertical interlayer correlation: $`T_{n=0}=S_x`$. So the relationship between $`T_n`$ and $`\psi _{spiral}(n)`$ is analogous to that between $`S_x`$ and $`\psi _{(1,1,1)}`$.

(ii) When acting upon momentum eigenstates, $`T_n`$ alters momentum of the eigenstates, though changes in momentum are negligible in the thermodynamic limit. So, in order to avoid any confusion, we compute $`T_n^2`$ instead.

(iii) In order to be meaningful in the thermodynamic limit, $`T_n^2`$ should be scaled as $`N^2`$.

(iv) Since the (1,1,1) state does not have any pseudospin spiral order, $`\psi _{(1,1,1)}|T_n^2|\psi _{(1,1,1)}/N^2`$ should be zero in the thermodynamic limit. However, there are some finite-system size corrections: $`\psi _{(1,1,1)}|T_n^2|\psi _{(1,1,1)}=N/4N_{}N_{}/2(N1)=𝒪(N)`$. We subtract these finite system size corrections from the expectation value of $`T_n^2`$.

Fig.5 plots the ground state expectation value of $`T_{n=1}^2`$ as a function of interlayer distance $`d/l_0`$. As one can see, $`T_{n=1}^2/N^2`$ is peaked around $`d/l_01.5`$ which is consistent with the critical interlayer distance $`d_c`$. So it is shown that indeed the ground state contains the pseudospin spiral order at $`dd_c`$. In fact, Fig.5 implies that the pseudospin ferromagnetic order and the pseudospin spiral order may coexist for a range of $`d`$ since the expectation value of pseudospin spiral order parameter is not zero even in interlayer distances smaller than $`d_c`$. Of course, in the thermodynamic limit, $`T_{n=1}^2/N^2`$ will be zero at $`d\mathrm{}`$ since there is no interlayer correlation in the two split Fermi seas of composite fermions.

Finally, we would like to discuss the physical origin of pseudospin spiral order. First, let us remind ourselves that the pseudospin ferromagnetic state can be viewed as a condensate of neutral pairs of electrons and correlation holes which are bound directly across the interlayer separation. Now for sufficiently large $`d`$ the ground state has the pseudospin spiral order, or equivalently diagonal interlayer correlation, which can be also viewed as a condensate of neutral electron-hole pairs with extended size and higher symmetry such as $`p`$-wave, as compared to the $`s`$-wave-like pair in pseudospin ferromagnet. Now, the origin of spiral order can be identified with the origin of extended pairs which is due to weak pairing. Of course, the pairing between electrons and correlation holes is weakened as d increases. Eventually the binding is completely lost when the split composite fermion Fermi seas are formed.

## VI Conclusions

We conclude by mentioning some experimental implications. Recently, Kellogg et al. observed an enhanced longitudinal drag resistance at $`d/l_0`$ as large as $`2.6`$ where the enhanced tunneling conductance is absent Kellogg2 . Theoretically, tunneling is renormalized from the bare single particle tunneling gap $`t`$ to the greatly enhanced renormalized tunneling $`tS_x`$. Therefore, it is natural to assume that the enhanced tunneling conductance becomes absent as soon as the pseudospin ferromagnetic order is destroyed at $`d=d_c`$. On the other hand, we have shown that there is a new interlayer phase coherence due to the pseudospin spiral order for $`d>d_c`$ which, we speculate, causes the longitudinal drag anomaly because of remaining interlayer correlation. Regarding the Hall resistance, our pseudospin spiral state is expected to be incompressible, as shown in the dispersion curve. However, the lowest energy gap is estimated to be very small so that the Hall plateau will be difficult to be observed in current temperature ranges and impurity concentrations.

The author is very grateful to S. Das Sarma for his careful reading of manuscript and his constant support throughout this work. The author is also indebted to E. Demler, S. M. Girvin, A. Kaminski and V. W. Scarola for their insightful comments. This work was supported by ARDA.


format: text

text:
# Color Superconductivity in Compact Stars and Gamma Ray Bursts

## 1 Introduction

The new accumulating data from X-ray satellites provide important information on the structure and formation of compact stellar objects. Concerning the structure, the new data fix rather stringent constraints on the mass and the radius of a compact star. These data are at first sight difficult to interpret in a unique and self-consistent theoretical scenario, since some of the observations are indicating rather small radii and other observations are indicating large values for the mass of the star.

Concerning the formation scenario, crucial information are provided by the very recent observations of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB), indicating the possibility that some of the GRBs are associated with a previous Supernova explosion, with a delay between the first and the second explosion of the order of days or years . These observations could be explained associating the second explosion with the conversion of a (metastable) hadronic star (HS) into a more stable stellar object made at least in part of deconfined quark matter (QM). In the scenario proposed in Ref. (see also references therein), the HS can be metastable due to the presence of a non-vanishing surface tension at the interface separating hadronic matter (HM) from QM. The nucleation time (i.e. the time to form a critical-size drop of quark matter) can be extremely long if the mass of the star is small. Via mass accretion the nucleation time can be dramatically reduced and the star is finally converted into the stable configuration.

In recent years, many theoretical works have investigated the possible formation of a diquark condensate in quark matter, at densities reachable in the core of a compact star . The formation of this condensate can deeply modify the structure of the star .

In this Letter we show that it is possible to satisfy the existing boundaries on mass and radius of a compact stellar object if a diquark condensate forms in a Hybrid Star (HyS) or a Quark Star (QS). Moreover, the formation of diquark condensate can significantly increase the energy released in the conversion from a purely HS into a more stable star containing deconfined QM.

## 2 Equation of state of beta-stable matter

The EOS appropriate to the description of a compact star has to satisfy beta-stability conditions. Moreover two charges are conserved, the baryonic and the electric one. These conditions need to be satisfied in the hadronic, in the quark and in the mixed phase. Although electric charge neutrality and beta-stability are easy to impose for non-interacting quark matter, these conditions are highly non-trivial when a diquark condensate can develop.

Concerning the hadronic phase we use the relativistic non-linear Glendenning-Moszkowski model (GM1-GM3) . At very low density we have used the Negele-Vautherin  and the Baym-Pethick-Sutherland  EOS. For the quark matter phase we adopt a MIT-bag like model in which the formation of a diquark condensate is taken into account in a simple and effective way which will be described below. To connect the two phases of our EOS, we impose Gibbs equilibrium conditions. When the Gibbs conditions are applied in presence of more than one conserved charge, the technique developed by Glendenning has to be adopted  and the pressure need not to be constant in the mixed phase. Therefore a finite volume of the star can be occupied by the mixed phase, what is crucial for the stability of the star.

It is widely accepted that the Color-Flavor Locking phase (CFL) is the real ground state of QCD at asymptoticly large densities but, at the scales which are involved in a compact star, there is yet uncertainty about the presence of this phase and in particular about the transition from superconducting QM to HM. There are different possible scenarios depending on the value of the strange quark mass. A direct transition from CFL to HM is possible for a small value of $`m_s`$. Alternatively, an intermediate window of Crystalline Color Superconductivity phase can develop  or a phase can be formed in which the Cooper pairing involves only quarks of the same flavor . A pure two flavor color superconductivity (2SC) phase is ruled out due to the high free energy cost resulting from the requirement of color and electric neutrality . A mixed 2SC-CFL phase could exist but it seems to be unstable due to Coulomb and surface effects . In our model the CFL phase is connected directly to HM through a first order phase transition, what seems to be consistent with the use of a small value for $`m_s`$, of the order of 150 MeV.

In this Letter we are interested in the bulk properties of a compact star. We use therefore a schematic model which takes into account in a simple and effective way the main characteristics of the EOS of quark matter in the presence of diquark condensation. The main aim of our work is to discuss the dependence of the structure of the star on the numerical value of three crucial parameters, namely the height and position of the maximum of the diquark gap and the value of the pressure of the vacuum $`B`$ of the MIT bag model.

We adopt the scheme proposed in Refs. where the thermodynamic potential is given by the sum of two contributions. The first term corresponds to a “fictional” state of unpaired quark matter in which all quarks have a common Fermi momentum chosen to minimize the thermodynamic potential. The other term is the binding energy of the diquark condensate expanded up to order $`(\mathrm{\Delta }/\mu )^2`$. In Ref. the gap is assumed to be constant, independent on the chemical potential. In the present calculation we consider a $`\mu `$ dependent gap resulting from the solution of the gap equation. We describe the superconducting phase using the first work of Alford, Rajagopal and Wilczek in which the Color-Flavor Locking phase was introduced  by considering three massless flavors. This approximation is a sensible one as long as $`m_s`$ is small in comparison with the quark chemical potential . The quark-quark interaction is described by a NJL-like Lagrangian with an effective coupling constant $`K`$ and a form factor which mimics the asymptotic freedom of QCD. The form factor reads: $`F(k)=\left(1+\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{k\mathrm{\Lambda }}{w}\right]\right)^1,`$ where $`w`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ are free parameters of this model.

The CFL phase is characterized by the existence of two order parameters $`\mathrm{\Delta }_s`$ (singlet) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_o`$ (octet) which are the solutions of two coupled gap equations. The value of the coupling $`K`$ is fixed, as in Ref., by imposing that the NJL Lagrangian with the same $`K`$ gives, through chiral symmetry breaking at zero chemical potential, a reasonable value for the chiral gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\chi `$. This procedure in turn fixes the maximum of the superconducting gap. In this work we use values for $`K`$ giving a $`\mathrm{\Delta }_\chi `$ ranging from 300 to 600 MeV and a corresponding maximum of the “effective gap” $`\mathrm{\Delta }(\mu )=F^2(\mu )\sqrt{[8(\mathrm{\Delta }_o(\mu ))^2+(\mathrm{\Delta }_s(\mu ))^2]/12}`$ varying from 70 to 150 MeV. This definition of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ corresponds to the gap used in Ref. if $`\mathrm{\Delta }_s=2|\mathrm{\Delta }_o|`$, as assumed in that work. In Fig.1 we display the “effective gap” as a function of the chemical potential. In our calculation we have not really solved self-consistently the coupled equations for the chiral and the superconducting gap. The result of microscopic calculations, like the ones of Refs. indicates that the two gaps are mutually exclusive. In particular, the superconducting gap is suppressed at low $`\mu `$. Therefore we do not consider realistic the parameters corresponding to gaps $`\mathrm{\Delta }_1`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$, and they are mainly introduced to illustrate the effects connected with the position $`\mu _{max}`$ of the maximum of the gap.

In our model, confinement is schematically described by introducing the MIT bag constant $`B`$. Moreover, the pressure and the energy density are modified by the contributions of the electrons, which are necessary in the mixed phase111In the pure CFL phase the contribution of electrons vanishes due to the electrical neutrality enforced by the existence of the gap .:

$`P`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{CFL}(\mu )B\mathrm{\Omega }^{electrons}(\mu _e)`$ (1)
$`E/V`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{CFL}(\mu )+\mu \rho +B+\mathrm{\Omega }^{electrons}(\mu _e)+\mu _e\rho _e,`$ (2)
where

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{CFL}(\mu )=\frac{6}{\pi ^2}_0^\nu k^2(k\mu )dk+\frac{3}{\pi ^2}_0^\nu k^2(\sqrt{k^2+m_s^2}\mu )dk\frac{3\mathrm{\Delta }^2\mu ^2}{\pi ^2}$$
(3)
with

$$\nu =2\mu \sqrt{\mu ^2+\frac{m_s^2}{3}},$$
(4)
and the quark density $`\rho `$ is calculated numerically by deriving the thermodynamic potential respect to $`\mu `$.

In Fig.2 we show the EOS with and without color superconductivity. The effect of the gap is to increase the pressure of paired QM respect to the unpaired QM at a fixed chemical potential. This extra pressure reduces the values of the critical densities. Comparing the curves for $`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }0`$ we can see that the CFL EOS is softer than the unpaired QM EOS at low density and stiffer at high density. This will have important consequences in the M-R curves.

## 3 Masses and radii of compact stellar objects

In Fig.3 we have collected most of the analysis of data from X-ray satellites, concerning masses and radii of compact stellar objects . Most of the data have been obtained very recently due to the technological progresses in the field of X-ray detectors. Although some (or all) of the data analysis are controversial, since they depend on specific assumptions on the structure of the X-ray source, we do think that these observational results deserve to be carefully discussed.

Observing Fig.3, we notice that the constraints coming from a few data sets (labeled “e”, “f”222A very recent reanalysis of the data of the pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658, discussed in Ref. , seems to indicate slightly larger radii, of the order of 9-10 km for a star having a mass of 1.4-1.5 $`M_{}`$ . “g” and maybe also constraint “h”333The data at the origin of constraint “h” have been discussed in many recent papers. In Ref. an indication for an even more compact stellar object can be found. Anyway, the so-called thermal radius obtained in these analysis could be significantly smaller than the total radius of the star.) indicate rather unambiguously the existence of very compact stellar objects, having a radius smaller than $`10`$ km. At the contrary, at least in one case (“a” in the figure), the analysis of the data suggests the existence of stellar objects having radii of the order of 12 km or larger, if their mass is of the order of 1.4 $`M_{}`$. In this analysis one has also to take into account that it is difficult from an astrophysical viewpoint to generate compact stellar objects having a mass of the order of one solar mass or smaller. Therefore the most likely interpretation of constraint “a” is that the corresponding stellar object does not belong to the same class of objects which have a radius smaller than $`10`$ km. Concerning constraint “b”, its interpretation is less clear, since it can be satisfied both with a very compact star or with a star having a larger radius. The apparent contradiction between the constraints “e”, “f”, “g” and the constraint “a” can be easily accommodated in our scheme, since it can be the signal of the existence of metastable purely hadronic stars which can collapse into a stable configuration when deconfined quark matter forms inside the star. In the next Section we will discuss the possible relation between this transition and at least some GRBs.

Finally, constraints (“c” and “d”) do not provide stringent limits on the radius of the star, but they put strong constraints on the lower value of its mass. Constraints “c” and “d” are very important, since it is in general not easy to obtain solutions of the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff equation having both large masses and very small radii. As we will see, the existence of an energy gap associated with the diquark condensate helps in circumventing this difficulty, since the effect of the gap is to increase the maximum mass of QSs or of HySs having a huge content of pure quark matter, as shown in Fig.4.

In the upper panel of Fig.4 we show that a CFL HyS has a smaller radius respect to an unpaired QM HyS, if the mass of the star is smaller than $``$ 1.35 $`M_{}`$. This can be explained observing the EOSs shown in Fig.2. For a low mass star, the central density lies in the region of the $`P\rho `$ plane where the CFL EOS is softer than the unpaired QM EOS and therefore the radius of the star is smaller. For a large mass star, on the contrary, the central density is in the region where the CFL EOS is stiffer than unpaired QM EOS and therefore the radius of the star is larger. It is also worth remarking that if the value of the gap is increased the amount of QM in the star also increases. Therefore, for large values of the gap, heavy HySs have a shape more and more similar to the shape of pure QSs, which are finally obtained by a further increase of the value of the gap444Notice that the existence of a large CFL gap is not constrained by the traditional argument concerning the stability of Fe against decay into two-flavor QM. (see also the lower panel of Fig.4). All these results are totally consistent with the ones obtained in Ref..

Concerning the value of the chemical potential $`\mu _{max}`$, which corresponds to the maximum of the gap, we get relevant modifications to the mass-radius relation if $`0.3`$ GeV $`\mu _{max}0.6`$ GeV. For larger values of $`\mu _{max}`$ the effect of the gap is negligible. Low values of $`\mu _{max}`$, of the order of 0.3 GeV, correspond to interesting stellar configurations, but are difficult to justify at the light of results like the ones presented in Ref. (see discussion at the end of Sec.2). In the upper panel of Fig.4 we display results for three values of $`\mu _{max}`$, whose corresponding gaps are shown in Fig.1. We also show that, using $`B^{1/4}`$ = 170 MeV, only a big value of the gap, located at a not too large density ($`\mathrm{\Delta }_4`$) allows the formation of a QS, while for the other gaps HySs are obtained.

In Fig.3 we show a few theoretical M-R relations which correspond to the scenario we are proposing. More precisely, we show a thick-dashed line corresponding to HSs (GM1), a thick dot-dashed line corresponding to HySs (GM1, $`B^{1/4}=170`$ MeV, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$) and a thick solid line corresponding to QSs (GM1, $`B^{1/4}=170`$ MeV, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_4`$). Both the HyS and the QS lines can satisfy essentially all the constrains derived from observations (concerning the constraint “f” see footnote (2)). Concerning the constraint “a”, it is probably better satisfied by the HS line than by the HyS or QS lines, which would give stars having a mass smaller than $`1.2M_{}`$. In conclusion, in our scheme most of the compact stars are either HySs or QSs having a mass in the range $`1.21.8M_{}`$ and a radius $`8.510`$ km. Metastable HS can exist. As we will see in the next section their mass is probably smaller than $`1.3M_{}`$.

## 4 Nucleation time and energy released

In the model we are discussing the formation of QSs or HySs is due to the conversion of a purely HS into a more compact star in which deconfined QM is present. An HS can be metastable if a non-vanishing surface tension is present at the interface between HM and QM. The process of quark deconfinement can be a powerful source for GRBs and it can also explain the delay between a supernova explosion and the subsequent GRB observed in a few cases 555A possible mechanism explaining these GRBs is the supranova model . In this model, the GRB is the result of the collapse to a black hole of a supramassive fast rotating NS, as it loses angular momentum. According to this model NS is produced in the Supernova explosion preceding the GRB event. The initial baryonic mass of the NS is assumed to be above the maximum baryonic mass for non-rotating configurations. As noticed in Ref.  in these collapse too much baryonic material is ejected and thus the energy output is expected to be too small to produce GRBs. Moreover, the supranova model seems to produce GRBs which are too short compared with the observed durations.. In the scenario proposed in Ref., the central density of a pure HS increases, due to spin down or mass accretion, until its value approaches the deconfinement critical density. At this point a spherical virtual drop of QM can form. The potential energy for fluctuations of the drop radius $`R`$ has the form :

$$U(R)=\frac{4}{3}\pi R^3n_q(\mu _q\mu _h)+4\pi \sigma R^2+8\pi \gamma R$$
(5)
where $`n_q`$ is the quark baryon density, $`\mu _h`$ and $`\mu _q`$ are the hadronic and quark chemical potentials, all computed at a fixed pressure $`P`$, and $`\sigma `$ is the surface tension for the interface separating quarks from hadrons. Finally, the term containing $`\gamma `$ is the so called curvature energy. For $`\sigma `$ we use standard values from 10 to 40 MeV/fm2 and we assume that it takes into account, in a effective way, also the curvature energy. The value of $`\sigma `$ was estimated in Ref. to be $`10`$ MeV/fm2. Values for $`\sigma `$ larger than $`30`$ MeV/fm2 are probably not useful at the light of the result of Refs..

To compute the time needed to form a bubble of quarks having a radius larger than the critical one, we use the technique of quantum tunneling nucleation. We can assume that the temperature has no effect in our scheme: for values of $`B^{1/4}160180`$ MeV, which we use in this Letter, the critical density $`\rho _1`$ separating pure HM from mixed phase is larger than $`4\rho _0`$ for $`Z/A0.3`$, i.e. for an isospin fraction typical of a newly formed and hot proto-neutron star . This critical density typically exceeds the central density of hot and not too massive stars. Therefore the mixed phase can form only when the star has deleptonized and its temperature has dropped down to a few MeV . When the temperature is so low, only quantum tunneling is a practicable mechanism. The calculation proceed in the usual way: after the computation (in WKB approximation) of the ground state energy $`E_0`$ and of the oscillation frequency $`\nu _0`$ of the virtual QM drop in the potential well $`U(R)`$, it is possible to calculate in a relativistic frame the probability of tunneling as :

$$p_0=\mathrm{exp}[\frac{A(E_0)}{\mathrm{}}]$$
(6)
where

$$A(E)=2_R_{}^{R_+}𝑑R\sqrt{[2M(R)+EU(R)][U(R)E]}.$$
(7)
Here $`R_\pm `$ are the classical turning points and

$$M(R)=4\pi \rho _h\left(1\frac{n_q}{n_h}\right)^2R^3,$$
(8)
$`\rho _h`$ being the hadronic energy density and $`n_h`$, $`n_q`$ are the baryonic densities at a same and given pressure in the hadronic and quark phase, respectively. The nucleation time is then equal to

$$\tau =(\nu _0p_0N_c)^1,$$
(9)
where $`N_c`$ is the number of centers of droplet formation in the star, and it is of the order of $`10^{48}`$ . In the calculation of nucleation times we neglect the effects of color superconductivity. We assume that the CFL gap cannot form until the radius of the quark drop has increased enough and therefore the energy released in the pairing process has not to be taken into account when computing the nucleation time. A support to our assumption can be found in Ref., where the authors have investigated finite size effects on the formation of a 2SC gap, projecting onto states of defined baryon number and onto color singlets. If the radius of the quark nugget is smaller than a critical length (of the order of 1.5–2 fm in their case) the magnitude of gap is drastically reduced. A similar calculation for the CFL phase has not yet been done, but it is reasonable to assume that due to the “locking” between color and flavor in the CFL phase the color projection will yield even larger effects.

Let us recall once again the astrophysical scenario we have in mind. In a few cases a delay of the order of days or years between the Supernova explosion and the subsequent GRB have been postulated to explain the astrophysical data on the GRBs. In the scheme we are discussing, this delay is due to the formation of a metastable HS having a relatively small mass. The nucleation time, computed using Eq. (9), can be extremely long if the mass of the metastable star is small enough. Via mass accretion the nucleation time can be reduced from values of the order of the age of the universe down to a value of the order of days or years. We can therefore determine the critical mass $`M_{cr}`$ of the metastable HS for which the nucleation time corresponds to a fixed small value (1 year in Table 1).

In Table 1 we show the value of $`M_{cr}`$ for various sets of model parameters. In the conversion process from a metastable HS into an HyS or a QS a huge amount of energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ is released. $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ is the difference between the gravitational mass of the metastable HS and that of the final HyS or QS having the same baryonic mass. We see in the Table that the formation of a CFL phase allows to obtain values for $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ which are one order of magnitude larger than the corresponding $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ of the unpaired QM case ($`\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$). Moreover, we can observe that $`\mathrm{\Delta }E`$ depends both on magnitude and position of the gap.

Finally let us comment on the dependence of the results of Table 1 on the value of $`B`$. As we can see, if $`B^{1/4}<160`$ MeV the value of $`M_{cr}`$ is very small and it is unlikely that a metastable HS having a mass $`MM_{cr}`$ can be obtained from a Supernova explosion. In that case all compact stars would be either HySs or QSs. If, at the contrary, $`B^{1/4}>170`$ MeV, the value of $`M_{cr}`$ is so large that a compact star can be only a (metastable) HS since, after the conversion from HM into QM, the HS collapses into a Black Hole (BH). Therefore, only if 160 MeV $`B^{1/4}`$ 170 MeV a GRB can be generated within the mechanism we are proposing.

## 5 Conclusions

We have studied the effect of color superconductivity on the EOS of quark matter and on the mass-radius relation for hybrid and quark stars. Comparing the theoretical curves with recent analysis of observational data, we find that color superconductivity is a crucial ingredient in order to satisfy all the constraints coming from observations. The most difficult problem posed by the astrophysical data is the indication of the existence of stars which are both very compact (R $``$ 9–10 km) and rather massive ($`M1.7M_{}`$). We can satisfy these constraints either with hybrid or quark stars. In particular, concerning hybrid stars, the gap increases significantly the maximum mass of the stable configuration, while keeping the corresponding radius $``$ 10 km. These findings are in agreement with the ones of Ref., where a chemical potential independent gap was used. Anyway, we have shown in this Letter that, to obtain very large masses for hybrid stars, the maximum of the superconducting gap need to be located at a value of the chemical potential which is probably too small.

The superconducting gap affects also deeply the energy released in the conversion from hadronic star into hybrid or quark star. To explain recent observations indicating a delay between a Supernova explosion and the subsequent Gamma Ray Burst , in Ref. it has been proposed to associate the second explosion with the transition from a metastable hadronic star to a stable star containing deconfined quark matter. In this Letter we have shown that the energy released, which will power the Gamma Ray Burst, is significantly increased by the effect of the superconducting gap and it can reach a value of the order of $`10^{53}`$ erg.

To satisfy the constraints on masses and radii of the compact stellar objects and to obtain a huge energy from the conversion of the metastable hadronic star into a quark or hybrid star, rather stringent limits on the parameter values have to be imposed. More explicitly, the pressure of the vacuum has to be in the range 160 MeV $`B^{1/4}`$ 170 MeV and the value of the gap has to have a maximum $`\mathrm{\Delta }0.15`$ GeV at a chemical potential 0.4 GeV $`\mu _{max}`$ 0.6 GeV. All these parameters are compatible with the results both of hadronic physics calculations and of microscopic studies of superconducting quark matter. Finally, let us remark that for values of $`B`$ in the indicated range, hybrid stars are obtained for unpaired quark matter, while, in most cases, the formation of the superconducting gap yields quark star configurations.

Very recently, a new candidate for a delayed Supernova – Gamma Ray Burst association, with an estimated delay of the order of months, has been proposed in Ref.. If confirmed, this observation would constitute an important support to models like the one we have suggested.

It is a pleasure to thank I. Bombaci, G. Fiorentini, F. Frontera, D. Guetta and S. Zane for many useful discussions.


text:
# KAIST-TH2003/03 UCB-PTH-03/08 Successful Modular Cosmology

## 1 Introduction

Early Universe cosmology offers one of the few opportunities to test the framework of particle theory phenomenology at high energy scales, in particular string/M-theory phenomenology. Indeed, moduli are generic in string/M-theory, and much attention has been drawn to cosmology where moduli play important roles in the early Universe . This has been referred to as ‘modular cosmology’. Unfortunately, despite many attempts to find viable cosmology scenarios associated with moduli, they turned out to give us cosmological obstacles  rather than attractive features.

Our main goal in this paper is to present a successful modular cosmology scenario where those difficulties due to moduli can be solved in a simple and self-consistent manner. Furthermore, this scenario gives definite predictions to be tested by forthcoming observations.

The paper is structured as follows.

Section 2.1 gives our motivation for the investigation of modular cosmology and discusses the cosmological difficulties involving moduli. Section 2.2 outlines how those difficulties are overcome in our proposed scenario.

Section 3.1 discusses eternal inflation  at the vacuum supersymmetry breaking scale, which is crucial in solving the dilaton stabilization problem. Section 3.2 is devoted to the non-slow-roll modular inflation which naturally follows the eternal inflation, and whose low energy scale is crucial not to disturb the dilaton potential.

Section 4 gives a detailed analysis of the density perturbations produced in our modular cosmology, starting in Section 4.1 with a brief review of the $`\delta N`$ formalism  necessary to analyse the contributions of the fluctuations in the multiple light degrees of freedom to the final curvature perturbation.

Section 5 briefly discusses thermal inflation’s solution of the Polonyi/moduli problem.

Section 6 gives our conclusions.

Facing the fact that our knowledge of string/M-theory is still too limited to fully describe the moduli dynamics in early Universe, we keep our discussion on string/M-theory aspects fairly general with emphasis on cosmological consequences to be compared with data. We hope our scenario can open up new possibilities in model building of modular cosmology which can be tested by observations.

## 2 Motivation

### 2.1 Difficulties in Modular Cosmology

Moduli are generic predictions of string/M theory, but pose major cosmological problems.

The stabilization of the dilaton is a serious problem in both particle physics and cosmology. In a typical setup, one simply cannot find a minimum in the weak coupling regime . More complicated models, such as the racetrack scheme , can realize a minimum at weak coupling with a moderate amount of fine-tuning (which is easily anthropically justified if there is no better solution). However, even if there exists such a minimum, it has only a shallow barrier separating it from the runaway part of the dilaton’s potential, and a steeply rising potential on the other side. Thus any typical cosmological history would lead the dilaton to over-shoot the desired weak coupling minimum and roll off along the runaway potential towards zero coupling .

Another serious cosmological problem is the cosmological moduli problem. Many moduli are expected to have Planckian vacuum expectation values relative to any symmetric points where they couple to other fields, giving them gravitationally suppressed couplings to other light fields. Shifting of their minima due to supersymmetry breaking in the early universe causes them to dominate the energy density of Universe, and they survive until or beyond nucleosynthesis destroying its successful predictions .

Thus, the ubiquitous moduli predicted by string/M-theory have given us a cosmological headache rather than helping us build a desirable cosmology scenario. It is therefore worth while to seek realistic modular cosmology scenarios where those serious cosmological problems are solved without fine-tuning in a self-consistent manner, and we address such a possibility in this paper.

### 2.2 Successful Modular Cosmology

Let us outline the key ingredients in our successful modular cosmology scenario.

One of the main features in our scenario is eternal modular inflation at the vacuum supersymmetry breaking scale. This is important because the infinite expansion of eternal inflation compensates for any finite unnaturalness in initial conditions. In particular, it can compensate for the extreme fine tuning of initial conditions required for the dilaton to find its way into a precarious weak coupling minimum. The importance of the low energy scale is that it ensures that the dilaton does not get disturbed from its minimum after the eternal inflation ends locally. If one had eternal inflation at a higher energy scale than the scale of vacuum supersymmetry breaking, the backreaction on the dilaton’s potential would dominate over the dilaton’s vacuum potential, and one could never expect the dilaton to find its way into its desired weak coupling minimum after the eternal inflation ends. Moreover, if eternal inflation occurs at a higher energy scale than the vacuum moduli potential, the moduli will roll down to possibly several vacua including run-away vacua, also leading to domain wall problems.

Of course, we do not mean that all of eternal inflation takes place at this low energy scale, just that the last eternal inflation (from our local point of view) occurred at that low energy scale. The full picture of eternal inflation would be of eternal inflation at the various discrete points in field space, from the Planck density down, corresponding to suitable false vacua or maxima with rare, but finitely rare, transitions between these points, and of course continually generating non-eternally inflating regions like our own .

Since the last eternal inflation occurred at the vacuum supersymmetry breaking scale, the inflation that produced the observed approximately scale-invariant density perturbations must have occurred at that scale or below. Such inflation emerges naturally as the modulus rolls away from its eternally inflating maximum. The scale-invariance is not automatic but can arise naturally when proper account of the contributions of the fluctuations in all the relevant light degrees of freedom in the generically complicated moduli potential is taken into account. In particular, fluctuations in angular degrees of freedom are hugely magnified by the long roll down of the modulus to Planckian values, allowing them to dominate the final curvature/density perturbation.

Finally, the overabundant moduli are diluted by thermal inflation which is natural consequence of thermal effects on unstable supersymmetric flat directions .

We now look into the details of our scenario in the following sections.

## 3 Eternal and Post-Eternal Modular Inflation

### 3.1 Eternal Modular Inflation

The modulus potential has the general form

$$V(\mathrm{\Phi })=M_\mathrm{s}^4(\mathrm{\Phi }/M_{\mathrm{Pl}}),$$
(1)
where $`M_\mathrm{s}`$ is the scale of supersymmetry breaking and $`M_{\mathrm{Pl}}1/\sqrt{8\pi G}`$. $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is the scalar component of a modulus chiral superfield and $``$ is a function with dimensionless coefficients of order unity. For most of the rest of the paper, we set $`M_{\mathrm{Pl}}=1`$. In our vacuum, for the case of gravity mediated SUSY breaking, $`M_\mathrm{s}10^{10}10^{11}`$ GeV, in order to get supersymmetry breaking masses $`m_\mathrm{s}M_\mathrm{s}^210^210^3`$ GeV. In our regime of interest, these will be the relevant scales. 111We expect our scenario to work equally well in the case of gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking, but leave proper investigation to .

Near a maximum, this potential will have the form

$$V(\varphi )=V_0\frac{1}{2}m_\varphi ^2\varphi ^2+\mathrm{},$$
(2)
where $`V_0M_\mathrm{s}^4`$ and $`m_\varphi M_\mathrm{s}^2`$, and we have simplified to a single real direction $`\varphi \mathrm{\Phi }`$. The equation of motion is

$$\ddot{\varphi }+3H\dot{\varphi }m_\varphi ^2\varphi =0$$
(3)
which, in the approximation $`3H^2V_0`$, has growing solution

$$\varphi e^{\alpha Ht}a^\alpha ,$$
(4)
where

$$\alpha =\frac{3}{2}\left(\sqrt{1+\frac{4m_\varphi ^2}{3V_0}}1\right).$$
(5)
Classically, one will get eternal inflation at the maximum as the field never rolls off. Quantum mechanically, one will have a distribution of field values which will scale like $`a^\alpha `$. Thus, the probability of having a field value $`|\varphi |<\epsilon `$ for some small $`\epsilon `$ will go like

$$P(|\varphi |<\epsilon )\frac{1}{\sqrt{\varphi ^2}}a^\alpha ,$$
(6)
while the physical volume of space scales as $`a^3`$. Thus if $`\alpha <3`$ or

$$m_\varphi ^2<6V_0,$$
(7)
one will have eternal inflation at the maximum .

As we discussed in Section 2.2, eternal inflation at this low energy scale plays a crucial role for stabilization of the dilaton in our scenario.

### 3.2 Post-Eternal Modular Inflation

Once the modulus locally rolls away from the maximum, the eternal inflation will end locally, but one will still get some more inflation as it rolls towards its minimum at Planckian values. This inflation is important because fluctuations produced during the eternal inflation are large leading to an inhomogeneous universe. The spectrum of perturbations produced by the modulus as it rolls away from the maximum is

$$P^{\frac{1}{2}}(k)=2^\alpha \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\alpha +\frac{3}{2}\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{3}{2}\right)}\frac{H_{}}{2\pi \alpha \varphi _{}}\left(\frac{k}{a_{}H_{}}\right)^\alpha ,$$
(8)
where subscript $``$ denotes an appropriate evaluation point 222One would usually choose some time around horizon crossing as the appropriate evaluation point, but this is not necessary here. In fact, the evaluation point can be any time during inflation when the scaling of $`\varphi `$, $`\varphi a^\alpha `$, and the constancy of $`H`$ ensure that Eq.(8) is independent of the time chosen to evaluate it.. For our values of $`H10^{16}`$ and $`\alpha 1`$, this drops below the COBE normalisation for

$$\varphi >\varphi _{\mathrm{COBE}}10^{12}.$$
(9)
Thus to make the observable universe sufficiently homogeneous we require that observable scales leave the horizon some time after $`\varphi =\varphi _{\mathrm{COBE}}`$. The observationally relevant number of $`e`$-folds is the number of $`e`$-folds from this point until inflation ends at $`\varphi 1`$, which is

$$N=\frac{1}{\alpha }\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{1}{\varphi _{\mathrm{COBE}}}\right)\frac{28}{\alpha }.$$
(10)
Recalling that, for inflation at $`V^{1/4}10^{10}10^{11}`$ GeV and assuming radiation domination after the inflation, the observable universe leaves the horizon around 45 $`e`$-folds before the end of inflation , and taking account of an additional $`10`$ $`e`$-folds due to thermal inflation, we see that for $`\alpha 1`$ we have enough $`e`$-folds of inflation to make the observable universe sufficiently homogeneous.

## 4 Density Perturbations

Beyond making the universe homogeneous, we also need to produce the observed approximately scale-invariant spectrum of density perturbations. The previous simplified model fails to do this for the usual reason: the supersymmetry breaking effect of the inflationary potential energy density induces a mass squared $`m_\varphi ^2V_0`$ and hence we have $`\alpha 1`$ and a spectrum far from scale invariant .

However, to properly calculate the spectrum of density perturbations produced during modular inflation, we need to take proper account of the contributions of fluctuations in all the relevant light degrees of freedom to the final curvature/density perturbation, and not just use an over-simplified toy model. We start with a brief review of the formalism for this .

### 4.1 $`\delta N`$ Formalism

The $`\delta N`$ formalism  relates the final curvature perturbation to the perturbation in the number of $`e`$-folds of expansion from an initial spatially flat hypersurface to a final comoving, or equivalently constant energy density, hypersurface

$$_\mathrm{c}=\delta N.$$
(11)
For illustration, let us consider single field dynamics first. In this case, the field trajectory is unique and therefore any perturbation just corresponds to a shift along the trajectory, which can be compensated by a local time shift, and hence leads to a curvature perturbation depending only on local quantities. If there exist multiple fields, however, there is an infinite family of field trajectories in the multiple-field space and each of the trajectories can follow different equations of state. Thus perturbations which shift from one trajectory to another can change the equation of state history and hence the number of $`e`$-folds of expansion

$$N=H𝑑t=H\frac{d\rho }{\dot{\rho }}=\frac{d\mathrm{ln}\rho }{3(1+w)}$$
(12)
in a very non-local way. Here $`wp/\rho `$. The final curvature perturbation is achieved when the multiple field dynamics disappears and the trajectories coalesce, leading to constant $`_\mathrm{c}`$ on superhorizon scales.

To apply this formalism, we simply write 333In general one has $`\delta N=\frac{N}{\varphi _i}\delta \varphi _i+\frac{N}{\dot{\varphi }_i}\delta \dot{\varphi }_i`$ but usually one can pick out a growing mode for $`\delta \varphi _i`$ in which case $`\delta \varphi _i`$ and $`\delta \dot{\varphi }_i`$ are no longer independent.

$$_c=\delta N=\frac{N}{\varphi _i}\delta \varphi _i,$$
(13)
where $`\varphi _i`$ represents each dynamical degree of freedom. Note that, in the above expression, $`N/\varphi _i`$ is a transfer function depending on background fields while $`\delta \varphi _i`$ is the perturbation on the initial flat hypersurface, and they can be calculated separately.

In the following sections we apply the $`\delta N`$ formalism to calculate the final curvature perturbation in three concrete toy models properly taking into account all relevant degrees of freedom. 444In this paper we mostly apply the $`\delta N`$ formalism to dynamics towards the end of inflation. However, it also encompasses cases, such as curvaton scenarios , where the multiple degrees of freedom survive long after inflation.

### 4.2 Simple Single Modulus

As an introduction, let us discuss the simplest case of a single complex modulus

$$\mathrm{\Phi }=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\varphi e^{i\theta }.$$
(14)
Eq. (13) gives

$$_\mathrm{c}=\delta N=\frac{N}{\varphi }\delta \varphi +\frac{N}{\theta }\delta \theta .$$
(15)
We assume that $`\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$ is a symmetric point so that the potential near the maximum has the form

$$V=V_0m_\varphi ^2|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2+\mathrm{}.$$
(16)
However, now that we are considering multiple real fields, just knowing the local potential is not good enough. The full modulus potential will be completely model dependent but a simple toy model will be sufficient for our purposes. We take

$$V=V_0m_\varphi ^2|\mathrm{\Phi }|^2+\frac{1}{3}m_\varphi ^2\left(\mathrm{\Phi }^3+\text{h.c.}\right)+m_\varphi ^2|\mathrm{\Phi }|^4$$
(17)
with $`V_0=2m_\varphi ^2/3`$ for vanishing vacuum energy.

The contribution to the final curvature perturbation from the radial component is

$$\frac{N}{\varphi }\delta \varphi =\frac{H}{\dot{\varphi }}\delta \varphi \frac{H}{\varphi },$$
(18)
and was given precisely in Eq. (8). The contribution to the final curvature perturbation from the angular component is

$$\frac{N}{\theta }\delta \theta \frac{N}{\theta }\frac{H}{\varphi }.$$
(19)
To evaluate this we need to determine $`N/\theta `$.

The analytical estimate of $`N/\theta `$ in our scenario is non-trivial because the approximate U(1) symmetry at small $`\varphi `$ is heavily broken at large $`\varphi `$. We hence give numerical analysis to determine $`N/\theta `$. As our initial conditions, we take a small value of $`\varphi `$, where the potential is still angularly symmetric so that the exact value of $`\varphi `$ does not matter, and various values of $`\theta `$. Some field trajectories are shown in Figure 1.

We can see that the initial angle $`\theta _i`$ greatly affects the form of the trajectory for large field values and will lead to different equation of state histories, and hence different amounts of expansion. $`N(\theta )`$ is shown in Figure 2, where we integrated the equation of motion starting from a fixed small initial value of $`\varphi `$ and continuing until a fixed final energy density where the equations of state had converged 555Here we ignore complications present in more complete models where one has to take into account degrees of freedom suppressed here. In particular, one might expect the different trajectories to lead to different fractions of radiation or other things produced at the end of the modular inflation. We will discuss this in more detail in Section 5..

We see that

$$\frac{N}{\theta }𝒪(1)$$
(20)
for a wide range of $`\theta _i`$, though the initial values $`\theta _i2n\pi /3`$, which lead to large spikes in $`N`$, could be a postiori preferred due to the greater spatial volume produced .

Thus, from Eqs. (18) and (19), we see that the angular fluctuations give a comparable, or possibly greater, contribution to the final curvature perturbation. This is due to the huge magnification of the angular fluctuations as $`\varphi `$ rolls from small values to Planckian values, comparable to the usual huge magnification of radial fluctuations near a maximum due to the factor $`N/\varphi =H/\dot{\varphi }`$.

However, as $`N/\theta `$ does not depend on the initial value of $`\varphi `$ (assuming that it is small), $`N/\theta `$ will be independent of $`k`$. Thus the contribution of the angular fluctuations, Eq. (19), has the same steep spectrum as that of the radial fluctuations and is not consistent with observations.

In the next sections we introduce models which avoid this problem.

### 4.3 Single Modulus with Quantum Corrections

Here we consider the next simplest model of modular inflation given in Ref. . We first briefly describe the model and then discuss the perturbations produced by it.

The previous model considered a modulus rolling away from a maximum at a point of enhanced symmetry. At such a point of enhanced symmetry, one would in general expect the modulus to have couplings to other light fields. These couplings will cause the mass to renormalise as a function of $`\varphi `$. This could turn the mass squared of the modulus positive for small $`\varphi `$, shifting the maximum of the potential out to some finite value $`\varphi =\varphi _{}`$.

Explicitly, following Ref.  with the notation change $`ϵ\beta `$ and implicitly keeping the full complex modulus field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$,

$$V=V_0\left[1\frac{1}{2}f(\beta \mathrm{ln}\varphi )\varphi ^2+\mathrm{}\right],$$
(21)
and we have a maximum at $`\varphi =\varphi _{}`$ where

$$f_{}+\frac{1}{2}\beta f_{}^{}=0.$$
(22)
We resolve the ambiguity in the definitions of $`f`$ and $`\beta `$ by fixing $`f_{}=f(1)`$ so that $`\varphi _{}=e^{1/\beta }`$. Note that $`f_{}<0`$ and typically $`\beta 1`$. We assume $`H\sqrt{V_0/3}`$ and $`\varphi \varphi _{}`$ when observable scales leave the horizon.

One will again have eternal inflation at the maximum, which now corresponds to the ring $`\varphi =\varphi _{}`$, and the eternal inflation ends locally when $`\varphi `$ locally rolls off the maximum towards large values. The distribution of $`\theta `$ values during the eternal inflation could be biased by the small symmetry breaking effects of the $`\mathrm{\Phi }^3`$ terms, which should also be included in this model, because the difference in expansion rate around the ring leads to differences in the spatial volumes generated. However, for small $`\varphi _{}`$, this biasing will be negligible as the differential expansion rate is much smaller than the diffusion rate around the ring due to quantum fluctuations.

This model has the interesting property that in the neighborhood of the maximum the potential is flattened in the radial direction by a factor $`\beta `$. This helps to flatten the contribution of the radial fluctuations to the final curvature perturbation, but not by as much as one would like . However, we will be more interested in the effect of the shift of the maximum out to finite $`\varphi =\varphi _{}`$. This means that as $`\varphi `$ rolls off the maximum, while $`\varphi \varphi _{}\varphi _{}`$, the radius $`\varphi `$ will hardly change, allowing the angular fluctuations to give a flat contribution to the final curvature perturbation.

Explicitly, the contribution of the radial fluctuations to final curvature perturbation is

$$\frac{N}{\varphi }\delta \varphi =\frac{H}{\dot{\varphi }}\delta \varphi \frac{H}{\varphi \varphi _{}},$$
(23)
and the contribution of the angular fluctuations is

$$\frac{N}{\theta }\delta \theta \frac{N}{\theta }\frac{H}{\varphi }.$$
(24)
Therefore, for $`N/\theta 𝒪(1)`$, the contribution of the angular fluctuations is suppressed relative to that of the radial fluctuations by the factor $`(\varphi \varphi _{})/\varphi `$. This is easily understood as for large $`\varphi `$, i.e. on small scales, the contributions are comparable, but as one approaches $`\varphi _{}`$, i.e. going to larger scales, the angular contribution to the spectrum flattens out while the radial contribution continues rising and so dominates.

However, if $`N/\theta 1`$, then the contribution of the angular fluctuations can dominate the final curvature perturbation giving the desired flat spectrum. 666A rough estimate suggests we need $`N/\theta 10^3`$. See Appendix A.2. This is realized, as indicated from Figure 2, if the angle is close to the one of angular maxima of the potential at $`\theta =2n\pi /3`$. As mentioned before, this can be probable if we consider that regions corresponding to these initial angles will undergo greater expansion and hence occupy a larger volume at late times. However, we do not want to be drawn too close to these special angles as $`N/\theta `$ will either diverge or be zero there. This requires further investigation .

A more precise formula for the spectrum of $`\delta \theta `$ is given by Eqs. (52) and (53) in the Appendix. The spectral index has the form

$$n1=Ak^{\beta f_{}^{}},$$
(25)
and the running

$$\frac{dn}{d\mathrm{ln}k}=A\beta f_{}^{}k^{\beta f_{}^{}}.$$
(26)
Therefore, if the contribution of the angular fluctuations dominates, one can expect a flat spectrum on larger scales with the spectrum dipping away with substantial running on smaller scales. It is very plausible that observable scales correspond to $`\varphi `$ close to, but not very close to, $`\varphi _{}`$, so that this running would be observable .

### 4.4 A Second Modulus

String theory does not predict a single modulus, but rather many moduli. Here, in addition to $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$, we consider the case that there is a second modulus $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ which drives eternal modular inflation and also some post-eternal modular inflation, before $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ rolls down driving its own modular inflation.

We take $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$’s potential to have the form

$$V=V_0\frac{1}{2}m_\psi ^2\psi ^2+\mathrm{},$$
(27)
where we consider just a single real direction $`\psi \mathrm{\Psi }`$, and, as always, $`m_\psi ^2V_0`$ and everything is at the vacuum supersymmetry breaking scale. As before, $`\psi `$ rolls down as

$$\psi a^\alpha ,$$
(28)
where

$$\alpha =\frac{3}{2}\left(\sqrt{1+\frac{4m_\psi ^2}{3V_0}}1\right)$$
(29)
and the contribution of fluctuations in $`\psi `$ to the final curvature perturbation will be

$$\frac{N}{\psi }\delta \psi =\frac{H}{\dot{\psi }}\delta \psi \frac{H}{\psi }.$$
(30)
During the modular inflation driven by $`\psi `$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$’s potential will have the form

$$V=V(\psi )+\frac{1}{2}m_\varphi ^2(\varphi ,\psi )\varphi ^2+\mathrm{}.$$
(31)
The mass squared $`m_\varphi ^2(\varphi ,\psi )`$ is renormalised as a function of $`\varphi `$ as before. However, it will also have a dependence on $`\psi `$ due to the supersymmetry breaking effect of $`\psi `$’s potential. Schematically, it looks like

$$m_\varphi ^2(\varphi ,\psi )m_{\mathrm{vac}}^2+m_{\mathrm{inf}}^2+\beta m_{\mathrm{ren}}^2\mathrm{ln}\varphi ,$$
(32)
where $`m_{\mathrm{vac}}^2m_{\mathrm{inf}}^2m_{\mathrm{ren}}^2m_\psi ^2`$ and $`\beta 1`$. We assume the indicated signs and that $`m_{\mathrm{inf}}^2>m_{\mathrm{vac}}^2`$ so that $`m_\varphi ^2>0`$ at large $`\varphi `$ during $`\psi `$’s modular inflation. We further assume that the renormalisation group running eventually turns $`m_\varphi ^2`$ negative so that $`\varphi `$ has a minimum at some exponentially small value $`\varphi _{}`$. This is just the inverse of the running we had in the previous model which produced a maximum, and leads to a quite interesting scenario as follows.

During $`\psi `$’s modular inflation, $`\varphi `$ has a mass of order $`H`$ which will suppress its fluctuations 777Note that the flattening mechanism also applies in this case, so the fluctuations in $`\varphi `$ may not be completely suppressed. We will leave further investigation of this point to another paper ., while $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$’s angular component stays massless and so will have unsuppressed fluctuations. Once $`\psi `$’s modular inflation ends, $`m_{\mathrm{inf}}^2`$ will disappear, or at least change greatly, releasing $`\varphi `$ to roll down to its vacuum at Planckian values as in our previous models, driving some more modular inflation as it does so. The angular fluctuations in $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ are massively amplified by this roll down and give a contribution to the final curvature perturbation

$$\frac{N}{\theta }\delta \theta \frac{N}{\theta }\frac{H}{\varphi _{}}$$
(33)
assuming that observable scales leave the horizon during $`\psi `$’s modular inflation. Since $`N/\theta `$ is independent of $`k`$, and $`\varphi _{}`$ is a constant, we get a flat contribution to the final curvature perturbation. Furthermore, it will dominate over $`\psi `$’s contribution as long as $`\psi \varphi _{}`$ when observable scales leave the horizon. Finally, for $`H10^{16}`$ and $`N/\theta 𝒪(1)`$, our model matches the COBE normalisation with a very reasonable $`\varphi _{}10^{12}`$, which is a natural consequence of the logarithmic renormalisation group running in our weak coupling regime.

A more precise formula for the spectrum of $`\delta \theta `$ is given by Eqs. (59) and (60) in the Appendix. The spectral index has the form

$$n1=Ak^{2\alpha },$$
(34)
and the running

$$\frac{dn}{d\mathrm{ln}k}=2\alpha Ak^{2\alpha }.$$
(35)
So, as in our previous model, one can expect a flat spectrum on larger scales with the deviation from a flat spectrum on smaller scales. In this model one expects $`\alpha 1`$ so the running will typically be larger than in the previous model. Due to the second modular inflation driven by $`\varphi `$, it is very plausible that observable scales left the horizon near the end of the first modular inflation driven by $`\psi `$, so that this running may be observable .

As mentioned in the Appendix, the above formula for the spectral index applies only for $`\alpha <1`$. The case $`\alpha 1`$ is more involved because the deviation from scale invariance is dominated by non-trivial dynamics at the end of inflation. Thus, in our model, even though the spectrum will be rather flat on large scales, we could possibly expect deviation from a flat spectrum for smaller scales caused by late-time inflation dynamics affecting super-horizon modes . We leave the detailed analysis of this perturbation calculation on super-horizon scales during the late epoch of modular inflation for our forthcoming paper .

## 5 Thermal Inflation

After our modular inflation, the moduli roll down and oscillate about the minimum of their potential. If this minimum corresponds to a point of enhanced symmetry, where the modulus has unsuppressed couplings to other light fields, then the modulus will decay rapidly. If the minimum is a Planckian distance away from any such point, then the modulus will have only gravitational strength couplings to other light fields and will decay too late for the successful predictions of Big Bang nucleosynthesis to survive . Even if our modulus decays rapidly, one expects other moduli to be displaced during the modular inflation and to roll down and oscillate when it ends. Again, these moduli may either decay rapidly, or contribute to the Polonyi problem. Thus, after the modular inflation, one expects to have initially perhaps comparable fractions of radiation and dangerous long-lived moduli.

Thermal inflation is considered to be one of the most promising mechanisms to get rid of the unwanted moduli. We keep the following discussion of thermal inflation fairly brief and refer the reader to Ref.  for more details.

Thermal inflation is driven by a flaton $`\sigma `$ with potential of the form

$$V=V_0+\left(g^2T^2m^2\right)|\sigma |^2+\left(A\lambda \sigma ^n+\text{h.c.}\right)+|\lambda |^2|\sigma |^{2n2},$$
(36)
with $`m10^210^3`$ GeV and $`n=4`$ or $`5`$. The flaton’s vacuum expectation value is $`Mm^{1/(n2)}`$ and $`V_0m^2M^2m^2`$ so we do not expect eternal or modular inflation. When $`T>T_\mathrm{c}=m/g`$, the flaton is trapped at the origin by the finite temperature potential, and inflation begins when $`V_0`$ dominates over the moduli density. After about 5 to 10 $`e`$-folds of inflation, which dilutes the moduli, the temperature drops below $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ and the flaton rolls rapidly towards its minimum ending the inflation. The Universe is then dominated by the oscillating flaton, which eventually decays to ordinary fields through non-renormalisable operators suppressed by of order $`M`$. After this ‘reheating’ at temperatures of order GeV, standard Big Bang cosmology follows.

We point out here that fluctuations in the angular part of the modulus produced during the modular inflation, which lead to perturbed trajectories at the end of the modular inflation, could lead to perturbations in the fraction of radiation produced at the end of the modular inflation. This could then lead to perturbations in the amount of thermal inflation, as the thermal inflation begins when the moduli density drops below $`V_0`$ but ends when the temperature drops below $`T_\mathrm{c}`$, giving an extra contribution to $`N/\theta `$. However, the perturbation in the fraction of radiation produced at the end of the modular inflation is likely to be highly model dependent and difficult to evaluate. This will be further investigated in Ref. , though we do not expect it to change our conclusions greatly.

We also note in Appendix A.3 that thermal fluctuations can produce perturbations during thermal inflation, but these are negligible in our case.

Thus thermal inflation, which is a natural consequence of thermal effects in the presence of supersymmetric flat directions, resolves our remaining difficulty with modular cosmology.

## 6 Conclusions

We presented the first realistic modular cosmology scenario in that dilaton stabilization, inflation producing a scale invariant spectrum of density perturbations, and Polonyi/moduli problems are resolved in a simple and self-consistent manner.

One of the notable features is eternal inflation at the vacuum supersymmetry breaking scale. This causes the fine-tuned initial conditions required for the dilaton to find its way to a weak coupling minimum to become a postiori as natural as any others because of the subsequent eternal inflation.

Our model also predicts the observed scale-invariant cosmic microwave background spectrum without any fine-tuning, and even allows for the possibility of a dipping spectrum with significant running on smaller scales , which alone could deserve special attention from the viewpoint of inflation model building. Indeed, non-slow-rolling inflaton fields are generic in supergravity theory, but usually avoided by fine-tuning because of their non-scale-invariant power spectrum. This fine-tuning is not necessary in our scenario because the density perturbation is dominantly produced from the angular degree of freedom of a modulus whose usually subdominant fluctuations are hugely amplified by the long roll out of the modulus. We gave explicit calculations of the spectrum, spectral index and its running for modular inflation for concrete toy models. We also pointed out the possible deviation from scale invariance at small scales for some values of the parameters, and we leave thorough treatment of this issue for our forthcoming paper .

Finally, thermal inflation solves the Polonyi/moduli problem.

Due to the generic existence of ubiquitous moduli in string/M-theory, an early universe history where moduli play crucial roles would be a rather natural consequence. We kept our discussions fairly general so that it can be applied to a wide class of models, and hope our proposed scenario leaves room for the further investigation of successful modular cosmology.

### Acknowledgements

We thank Joanne D. Cohn for catalyzing our collaboration and for encouragement, and the SF02 Cosmology Summer Workshop for hospitality when this collaboration began. E.D.S. thanks the Fermilab Theoretical Astrophysics Group for hospitality while this work was in progress. K.K. thanks J.D. Cohn and H. Murayama for their continuous encouragements. E.D.S. was supported in part by the Astrophysical Research Center for the Structure and Evolution of the Cosmos funded by the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation and the Korean Ministry of Science, and by the Korea Research Foundation grants KRF-2000-015-DP0080 and KRF PBRG 2002-070-C00022. K.K. was supported in part by NSF under grant AST-0205935.

## A Appendices

### A.1 Precise Calculation of $`\delta \theta `$

In this appendix we calculate the spectra for the models presented in Sections 4.3 and 4.4, starting with a general formula applicable to both.

To calculate $`\delta \theta `$, on superhorizon scales but while the angular potential is still flat, we need to solve the perturbed equation of motion for $`\delta \theta (k,t)`$

$$\frac{d}{dt}\left(a^3\varphi ^2\frac{d\delta \theta }{dt}\right)+ak^2\varphi ^2\delta \theta =0.$$
(37)
Defining

$$\phi a\varphi \delta \theta $$
(38)
and using the conformal time $`d\eta dt/a`$, we obtain

$$\frac{d^2\phi }{d\eta ^2}+\left[k^2\frac{1}{a\varphi }\frac{d^2(a\varphi )}{d\eta ^2}\right]\phi =0,$$
(39)
where

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a\varphi }}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2(a\varphi )}{d\eta ^2}}=2a^2H^2\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2H^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{dH}{dt}}+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2H\varphi }}{\displaystyle \frac{d\varphi }{dt}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2H^2\varphi }}{\displaystyle \frac{d^2\varphi }{dt^2}}\right).`$ (40)
Introducing $`y\sqrt{2k}\phi `$ and $`xk\eta `$, we can write this as

$$\frac{d^2y}{dx^2}+\left(1\frac{2}{x^2}\right)y=\frac{g}{x^2}y,$$
(41)
where

$$g=\frac{1}{xa\varphi }\left[\frac{d^2(xa\varphi )}{(d\mathrm{ln}x)^2}3\frac{d(xa\varphi )}{d\mathrm{ln}x}\right].$$
(42)
For

$$g=\xi \left(\frac{x}{x_{}}\right)^\nu $$
(43)
with $`\xi 1`$, this can be solved to give

$$P_{\delta \theta }(k)=\left(\frac{k}{2\pi x_{}a_{}\varphi _{}}\right)^2\left\{1+\frac{2}{(3\nu )\nu }\left[(2x_{})^\nu \mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\pi \nu }{2}\right)\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2+\nu )}{1\nu }1\right]\xi +𝒪(\xi ^2)\right\},$$
(44)
where subscript $``$ denotes an appropriate evaluation point. The divergence at $`\nu =2`$ corresponds to the deviation of the spectrum from scale invariance being dominated by late time dynamics . The spectral index is

$$n_{\delta \theta }(k)1=\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\pi \nu }{2}\right)\frac{2\mathrm{\Gamma }(2+\nu )}{(1\nu )(3\nu )}\frac{\xi }{(2x_{})^\nu }.$$
(45)
We apply the above formula to the specific models we discussed in the paper.

#### A.1.1 Single Modulus with Quantum Corrections

Here we derive the explicit form for Eq. (25) of Section 4.3.

For $`H\sqrt{V_0/3}`$, we have

$$x=\frac{k}{aH},$$
(46)
and

$$g=\frac{3}{\varphi H}\frac{d\varphi }{dt}+\frac{1}{\varphi H^2}\frac{d^2\varphi }{dt^2}.$$
(47)
Eq. (24) of Ref.  gives

$$\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\varphi }{\varphi _{}}\right)=\frac{1}{\beta }e^{\beta f_{}^{}(N+C)},$$
(48)
where $`N`$ is the number of $`e`$-folds until inflation ends at $`\varphi 1`$, and $`C1/\beta `$. Therefore

$$\frac{1}{\varphi H}\frac{d\varphi }{dt}=f_{}^{}e^{\beta f_{}^{}(N+C)}$$
(49)
and

$$\frac{1}{\varphi H^2}\frac{d^2\varphi }{dt^2}=f_{}^{}e^{\beta f_{}^{}(N+C)}\left[\beta f_{}^{}+f_{}^{}e^{\beta f_{}^{}(N+C)}\right]\beta f_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}e^{\beta f_{}^{}(N+C)}.$$
(50)
Hence

$$g=\left(3+\beta f_{}^{}\right)f_{}^{}e^{\beta f_{}^{}(N+C)}=\left(3+\beta f_{}^{}\right)\beta f_{}^{}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\varphi _{}}{\varphi _{}}\right)\left(\frac{x}{x_{}}\right)^{\beta f_{}^{}},$$
(51)
leading to

$$P_{\delta \theta }(k)=\left(\frac{H_{}}{2\pi \varphi _{}}\right)^2\left\{12\left[2^{\beta f_{}^{}}\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\pi \beta f_{}^{}}{2}\right)\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2\beta f_{}^{})}{1+\beta f_{}^{}}\left(\frac{k}{a_{}H_{}}\right)^{\beta f_{}^{}}1\right]\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\varphi _{}}{\varphi _{}}\right)\right\}$$
(52)
and

$$n_{\delta \theta }(k)1=2^{\beta f_{}^{}}\mathrm{cos}\left(\frac{\pi \beta f_{}^{}}{2}\right)\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(2\beta f_{}^{})}{(1+\beta f_{}^{})}2\beta f_{}^{}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\varphi _{}}{\varphi _{}}\right)\left(\frac{k}{a_{}H_{}}\right)^{\beta f_{}^{}}.$$
(53)
Note the sign change from one’s naive expectation for $`\beta f_{}^{}>1`$ .

#### A.1.2 A Second Modulus

Now we derive the explicit form for Eq. (34) of Section 4.4.

Here we assume $`\varphi =\varphi _{}`$ leaving consideration of the effects of any time dependence of $`\varphi `$ to another paper . $`\psi `$ scales as

$$\psi a^\alpha $$
(54)
with

$$\alpha =\frac{3}{2}\left(\sqrt{1+\frac{4m_\psi ^2}{3V_0}}1\right).$$
(55)
Therefore

$$3H^2=V_0\frac{1}{2}m_\psi ^2\psi ^2+\frac{1}{2}\dot{\psi }^2=V_0\left(1\frac{1}{2}\alpha \psi ^2\right)$$
(56)
and

$$x=\frac{k}{aH}\left[1+\frac{\alpha ^2\psi ^2}{2(12\alpha )}\right].$$
(57)
Hence

$$g=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{3+2\alpha }{12\alpha }\right)\alpha ^2\psi _{}^2\left(\frac{x}{x_{}}\right)^{2\alpha },$$
(58)
leading to

$$P_{\delta \theta }(k)=\left(\frac{H_{}}{2\pi \varphi _{}}\right)^2\left\{1\frac{\alpha }{2}\left[2^{2\alpha }\mathrm{cos}(\pi \alpha )\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(22\alpha )}{14\alpha ^2}\left(\frac{k}{a_{}H_{}}\right)^{2\alpha }1\right]\psi _{}^2\right\}$$
(59)
and

$$n_{\delta \theta }(k)1=2^{2\alpha }\mathrm{cos}(\pi \alpha )\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(22\alpha )}{14\alpha ^2}\alpha ^2\psi _{}^2\left(\frac{k}{a_{}H_{}}\right)^{2\alpha }.$$
(60)
### A.2 Estimation of the Required Value of $`N/\theta `$ for the Single Modulus with Quantum Corrections Model

In the single modulus with quantum corrections model of Section 4.3, the radial fluctuations have only a slightly flattened spectrum. Therefore we require

$$\frac{N}{\varphi }\delta \varphi 10^1\frac{N}{\theta }\delta \theta $$
(61)
to avoid the radial fluctuations giving the full spectrum too big a deviation from scale invariance. Now

$$\delta \theta \frac{\dot{\varphi }}{H\varphi }\frac{N}{\varphi }\delta \varphi $$
(62)
and using the results of Appendix A.1.1 we have

$$\frac{\dot{\varphi }}{H\varphi }\beta f_{}^{}\mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{\varphi }{\varphi _{}}\right)\frac{n_{\delta \theta }1}{2}10^2.$$
(63)
Thus we get the estimate

$$\frac{N}{\theta }10^3.$$
(64)
We also note that matching the COBE normalization requires

$$\frac{N}{\theta }\frac{H}{\varphi _{}}10^4,$$
(65)
and so for $`H10^{16}`$ require

$$\frac{N}{\theta }10^{12}\varphi _{}$$
(66)
which gives us an upper limit on $`N/\theta `$ as we expect $`\varphi _{}`$ to be well below the Planck scale.

### A.3 Perturbations from Thermal Fluctuations during Thermal Inflation

In this appendix we note that there can arise another source of perturbations caused by thermal fluctuations during thermal inflation. These thermal fluctuations can be estimated by considering the thermal fluctuation $`\delta TT`$ in regions of the thermal bath of size $`1/T`$. A Hubble volume of radius $`1/H`$, outside of which the thermal fluctuation freezes in, encloses $`T^3/H^3`$ of such regions giving a thermal fluctuation on the Hubble scale of $`\delta TT/\sqrt{T^3/H^3}`$. Thus we have

$$_\mathrm{c}=\delta N=\frac{N}{T}\delta T\frac{1}{T}T\sqrt{\frac{H^3}{T^3}}\left(\frac{T_\mathrm{c}M}{T}\right)^{3/2}.$$
(67)
Now $`Ta^1`$ and so this has a spectral index $`n=4`$, with its maximum value $`M^{3/2}`$ at the end of thermal inflation. This is completely negligible for thermal inflation with an intermediate scale $`M`$ as we are considering, but could be significant for thermal inflation driven by a flaton with $`MM_{\mathrm{GUT}}`$.