What-if inflaton is a spinor condensate?
  In the usual cosmological inflationary scenarios, the scalar field --
inflaton -- is usually assumed to be an elementary field. In this essay, we
ask: What are the observational signatures, if the scalar field is a spinor
condensate? and Is there a way to distinguish between the canonical scalar
field and the spinor condensate driven models? In the homogeneous and isotropic
background, we show that, although the dark-spinor (Elko) condensate leads to
the identical acceleration equation as that of the canonical scalar field
driven inflation, the dynamics of the two models are different. In the
slow-roll limit, we show that the model, predicts a running of scalar spectral
index consistent with the WMAP data. We show that the consistency relations
between the spinor condensate and canonical scalar field driven model are
different which can be tested using the future CMB and gravitational wave
missions.
