title: Model independent signatures of new physics in the inflationary power spectrum.
abstract: We compute the universal generic corrections to the inflationary power spectrum due to unknown high-energy physics. We arrive at this result via a careful integrating out of massive fields in the "in-in" formalism yielding a consistent and predictive low-energy effective description in time-dependent backgrounds. We find that the power spectrum is universally modified at order H/M, where H is the scale of inflation. This is qualitatively different from the universal corrections in time-independent backgrounds, and it suggests that such effects may be present in upcoming cosmological observations.
authors.affiliation: Instituut-Lorentz for Theoretical Physics, University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Mark G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Jackson
authors.forename: Koenraad
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schalm