Bounds on generic high-energy physics modifications to the primordial power spectrum from back-reaction on the metric

Modifications to the primordial power spectrum of inflationary density perturbations have been studied recently using a boundary effective field theory approach. In the approximation of a fluctuating quantum field on a fixed background, the generic effect of new physics is encoded in parameters of order HIM. Here, we point out that the back-reaction on the metric can be neglected only when these parameters obey certain bounds that may put them beyond the reach of observation. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.