In the primordial universe, oscillations of heavy fields can be considered as standard clocks to measure the expansion or contraction history of the universe. Those standard clocks provide a model-independent way of distinguishing inflation and alternative scenarios. However, the mass of the heavy fields may not be a constant mass, but rather mass dynamically generated by non-minimal coupling to the Ricci scalar, or self-interactions. In the case of dynamically generated mass, the mass of the heavy field is generically of order Hubble, and thus is time-dependent in alternative to inflation scenarios. We show that such dynamically generated mass terms can be considered as non-standard primordial clocks for alternative to inflation, providing similar oscillatory frequencies as standard clocks of inflation. Additional information on scale dependence can distinguish such non-standard clocks from standard clocks.

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来自诱导质量的非标准原始时钟替代通货膨胀场景

在原始宇宙中，重场的振荡可以被认为是衡量宇宙膨胀或收缩历史的标准时钟。这些标准时钟提供了一种独立于模型的方法来区分通货膨胀和替代方案。然而，重场的质量可能不是恒定质量，而是通过与 Ricci 标量或自相互作用的非最小耦合动态产生的质量。在动态产生的质量的情况下，重场的质量一般是哈勃级的，因此在替代暴胀场景时是依赖于时间的。我们表明，这种动态生成的质量项可以被视为用于替代暴胀的非标准原始时钟，提供与标准暴胀时钟类似的振荡频率。