22–26 Jun 2026
Richard Roberts Auditorium
Europe/London timezone

How Sensitive is Cosmic Inflation to Quantum Corrections?

23 Jun 2026, 14:15
20m
Lecture Theatre C (Hicks Building)

Lecture Theatre C

Hicks Building

Contributed Talk Cosmology

Speaker

Lucien Heurtier (King's College London)

Description

In this talk, I will present a non-perturbative framework that allows to track the dynamics of slow-roll inflation while consistently incorporating quantum corrections, based on an alternative functional renormalisation group (RG) approach. I will guide you through the derivation of a set of coupled Friedmann-RG flow equations governing the joint evolution of spacetime, the inflaton field, and its effective potential. Applying this formalism to α-attractor E-models, I will show that the RG flow induces a dynamical destabilisation of the inflationary trajectory, leading to a premature termination of slow roll. Remarkably, the resulting predictions bring α-attractors into full agreement with the latest ACT data without introducing new physics beyond a consistent quantum-corrected treatment of the inflaton dynamics.

Author

Lucien Heurtier (King's College London)

Presentation materials