8–10 Apr 2026
John McIntyre Conference Centre
Europe/London timezone

How Sensitive is Cosmic Inflation to Quantum Corrections?

9 Apr 2026, 11:45
15m
John McIntyre Conference Centre

John McIntyre Conference Centre

Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5AY
Parallel talk Astroparticle physics Parallel Talks

Speaker

Lucien Heurtier (King's College London)

Description

A lot. 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

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