Density perturbations from curvatons revisited

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We investigate density perturbations sourced by a curvaton with a generic energy potential. The key feature of a curvaton potential which deviates from a quadratic is that the curvaton experiences a non–uniform onset of its oscillation. This sources additional contributions to the resulting density perturbations, and we especially find that curvaton potentials that are flatter compared to a quadratic lead to enhancement of the linear and second–order density perturbations, while steepened potentials can generate strongly scale–dependent non–Gaussianity. As such examples, we study pseudo–Nambu–Goldstone curvatons and self–interacting curvatons. Our analyses are analytic, and thus provide a systematic framework for studying curvatons in general. The discussion in this paper are based on [1, 2].