Generating Scale-Invariant Perturbations from Rapidly-Evolving Equation   of State
  Recently, we introduced an ekpyrotic model based on a single, canonical scalar field that generates nearly scale invariant curvature fluctuations through a purely "adiabatic mechanism" in which the background evolution is a dynamical attractor. Despite the starkly different physical mechanism for generating fluctuations, the two-point function is identical to inflation. In this paper, we further explore this concept, focusing in particular on issues of non-gaussianity and quantum corrections. We find that the degeneracy with inflation is broken at three-point level: for the simplest case of an exponential potential, the three-point amplitude is strongly scale dependent, resulting in a breakdown of perturbation theory on small scales. However, we show that the perturbative breakdown can be circumvented -- and all issues raised in Linde et al. (arXiv:0912.0944) can be addressed -- by altering the potential such that power is suppressed on small scales. The resulting range of nearly scale invariant, gaussian modes can be as much as twelve e-folds, enough to span the scales probed by microwave background and large scale structure observations. On smaller scales, the spectrum is not scale invariant but is observationally acceptable. 
Justin Khoury and Paul J. Steinhardt
hep-th