Gr.IV seminar: Angelo Caravano - "Backreaction and Cosmic Butterflies: non-perturbative insights into the small-scale physics of inflation"

Wednesday May 6, 2026, 4:00 PM → 5:00 PM Europe/Rome

0M04

The small-scale physics of inflation can leave observational signatures in the gravitational-wave background and may also generate primordial black holes as a dark matter candidate. These phenomena often involve a significant enhancement of inflationary fluctuations, potentially leading to a breakdown of standard perturbation theory. In this talk, I will discuss how lattice simulations provide a tool to address these challenges. Focusing on single-field inflationary models with deviations from slow roll, I will show how nonlinear physics can significantly alter the inflationary dynamics and their predictions, even in regimes where perturbation theory is typically assumed to be valid. This highlights the role of lattice simulations in probing inflation with current and future gravitational-wave experiments.