Squeezing of scalar and tensor primordial perturbations generated by modified dispersion relations

Abstract

In recent work we analyzed the evolution of primordial perturbations satisfying Planck-scale-modified dispersion relations and showed that there is no cosmological "squeezing" in the critical model that produces perturbations with a scale invariant spectrum. Nevertheless, the perturbations reenter the horizon as standing waves with the correct temporal phase because of the late-time decay of the momentum mode. Here we shed light on the absence of primordial squeezing by re-examining the problem in the dual rainbow frame, where $c$ is set to 1, shifting the varying $c$ effects elsewhere. In this frame gravity switches off at sub-Planckian wavelengths, so that the fluctuations behave as if they were in Minkowski spacetime. This is ultimately why they are not squeezed. However, away from the critical model squeezing does occur if the fluctuations spectrum is red, as is the case for scalar perturbations. Should the primordial gravity waves have a blue spectrum, we predict that they might not reenter the horizon as standing waves, because the momentum mode would be enhanced in the primordial phase.