We study quantum corrections to Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmology with a scalar field under the assumption that the dynamics are subject to renormalization group improvement. We use the Bianchi identity to relate the renormalization group scale to the scale factor and obtain the improved cosmological evolution equations. We study the solutions of these equations in the renormalization group fixed point regime, obtaining the time dependence of the scalar field strength and the Hubble parameter in specific models with monomial and trinomial quartic scalar field potentials. We find that power-law inflation can be achieved in the renormalization group fixed point regime with the trinomial potential, but not with the monomial one. We study the transition to the quasiclassical regime, where the quantum corrections to the couplings become small, and find classical dynamics as an attractor solution for late times. We show that the solution found in the renormalization group fixed point regime is also a cosmological fixed point in the autonomous phase space. We derive the power spectrum of cosmological perturbations and find that the scalar power spectrum is exactly scale invariant and bounded up to arbitrarily small times, while the tensor perturbations are tilted as appropriate for the background power-law inflation. We specify conditions for the renormalization group fixed point values of the couplings under which the amplitudes of the cosmological perturbations remain small.

• Received 7 December 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.85.043501