Robust predictions for the large-scale cosmological power deficit from primordial quantum nonequilibrium

Abstract

The de Broglie-Bohm pilot-wave formulation of quantum theory allows the existence of physical states that violate the Born probability rule. Recent work has shown that in pilot-wave field theory on expanding space relaxation to the Born rule is suppressed for long-wavelength field modes, resulting in a large-scale power deficit ξ(k) which for a radiation-dominated expansion is found to have an approximate inverse-tangent dependence on k (assuming that the width of the initial distribution is smaller than the width of the initial Born-rule distribution and that the initial quantum states are evenly-weighted superpositions of energy states). In this paper we show that the functional form of ξ(k) is robust under changes in the initial nonequilibrium distribution -- subject to the limitation of a subquantum width -- as well as under the addition of an inflationary era at the end of the radiation-dominated phase. In both cases the predicted deficit ξ(k) remains an inverse-tangent function of k. Furthermore, with the inflationary phase the dependence of the fitting parameters on the number of superposed pre-inflationary energy states is comparable to that found previously. Our results indicate that, for the assumed broad class of initial conditions, an inverse-tangent power deficit is likely to be a fairly general and robust signature of quantum relaxation in the early universe.