Production of non-gaussianities through a positive spatial curvature bouncing phase
Abstract
We compute the level of non-gaussianities produced by a cosmological bouncing phase in the minimal non-singular setup that lies within the context of General Relativity when the matter content consists of a simple scalar field with a standard kinetic term. Such a bouncing phase is obtained by requiring that the spatial sections of the background spacetime be positively curved. We restrict attention to the close vicinity of the bounce by Taylor expanding the scale factor a(η), the scalar field phi(η) and the potential V(phi) in powers of the conformal time η around the bounce. We find that possibly large non-gaussianities are generically produced at the bounce itself and also discuss which shapes of non-gaussianities are most likely to be produced.