Fermilab Cosmic Physics Center

Cosmic inflation is the most compelling model for the earliest moments of our Universe and provides a mechanism for seeding the initial density perturbations of cosmological observables. Modeled as a single scalar field known as the inflaton, observations can probe physics up to ~ 10^{14} GeV, far beyond the reach of any terrestrial experiment. Measuring the power spectrum of cosmological observables can probe the inflaton potential V(ϕ), while the dynamics can be tested by measuring higher-order statistics, such as the bispectrum. The best constraints on the power spectrum and bispectrum are from temperature anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), which probe a narrow window of inflation at scales k ~ 10^{-4} – 10^{-1} Mpc^{-1}. I will discuss using anisotropies of μ-distortions, a spectral distortion of the CMB, to further our observations of inflation to scales of k ~ 50 – 10^4 Mpc^{-1}, and our ability to measure μ-anisotropies with upcoming CMB experiments.