Condensation of Planckian Modes and the Inflaton

To confront the transplanckian problem encountered in the backward extrapolation of the cosmological expansion of the momenta of the modes of quantum field theory, it is proposed that there is a reservoir, depository of transplanckian degrees of freedom. These are solicited by the cisplanckian modes so as to keep their density fixed and the total energy density of vacuum at a minimum. The mechanism is due to mode reservoir interaction, whereupon virtual quantum processes give rise to an effective mode-mode attraction. A BCS condensate results. It has a massless and massy collective excitation, the latter identified with the inflaton. For an effective non dimensional mode-reservoir coupling constant, g ≃ 0.3, the order of magnitude of its mass is what is required to account for cosmological fluctuations i.e. O(10–10)mPlanck.