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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2026
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.14413 |
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Table of Contents:
- Ghost inflation is a well-known framework in which cosmological fluctuations can generate enhanced primordial non-Gaussianity, typically of the equilateral type. In its original form, however, it is in tension with current observational constraints. Here we instead consider a setup in which a standard inflaton drives the background evolution, while excitations of a ghost condensate act as spectator fields that interact with the inflaton. This proposal fits naturally within the cosmological collider program: the exchanged particle has a modified dispersion relation, $ω\propto k^2$. We show that this ghost-inspired dynamics weakens the usual Boltzmann suppression, similarly to models with a very small effective sound speed, yielding an enhanced bispectrum signal relative to standard cosmological collider scenarios. At the same time, the horizon-crossing scale remains a free parameter of the theory. As a result, the model shares features of both the de Sitter bootstrap and boostless frameworks. Finally, we derive the differential equations governing cosmological correlators in the ghost-collider setup. Their structure reflects the quadratic momentum dependence of the dispersion relation and distinguishes this scenario from conventional relativistic cases.