# Stochastic evolution of scalar fields with continuous symmetries during inflation

@article{Adshead2020StochasticEO,
title={Stochastic evolution of scalar fields with continuous symmetries during inflation},
author={Peter Adshead and Lauren M Wozniak Pearce and Jessie Shelton and Zachary J. Weiner},
journal={Physical Review D},
year={2020},
volume={102},
pages={023526}
}
• Published 17 February 2020
• Physics
• Physical Review D
During inflation, scalar fields with masses less than the Hubble scale acquire vacuum expectation values (vevs) via stochastic processes driven by quantum fluctuations. For nearly massless spectator scalars transforming nontrivially under a continuous symmetry group, we demonstrate that the evolution of the vev depends on the dimensionality of the scalar field space. Fields in larger representations both attain larger vacuum expectation values and converge more rapidly to equilibrium. We…

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