Abstract:

The simplest single-field slow-roll (SFSR) models for inflation do a great job of explaining an increasing wealth of data on the distribution of mass in the early Universe and in the Universe today. One of the predictions of SFSR inflation is that primordial perturbations should have a distribution that is precisely Gaussian. However, no theorist believes SFSR models to be any more than toy models, and sooner or later there should be violations, at some level, from the predictions of these simple models. Departures from Gaussianity are one of the possibilities for beyond-SFSR models, and an active effort is now afoot to seek these non-Gaussianities. In this talk, I will discuss (a) some models for non-Gaussianity, (b) ways to detect non-Gaussianity in galaxy surveys, and (c) issues for measurement of non-Gaussianities in the CMB.