Probing primordial symmetry breaking with the cosmic microwave background anisotropy

Abstract

There have been vigorous research attempts to test various modified gravity theories by usingphysics of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Meanwhile, symmetry breaking such as Higgsmechanism is one of the most important phenomena in physics but there have been not so muchresearches to make them contact with cosmological observations. In this article, with the CMBpower spectra we try to distinguish two different scenarios of spontaneous symmetry breaking inprimordial era of the universe. The first model is based on a broken symmetric theory of gravity,which was suggested by A. Zee in 1979. The second model is an application of Palatini formalismto the first model. Perturbation equations are computed and they show differences originated fromthe property of symmetry. Furthermore, it turns out that two models have different features ofCMB power spectra with the same potential scale. This fact enables us to verify distinct kinds ofprimordial symmetry breaking with CMB physics.