A new approach to the vacuum of inflationary models
  A new approach is given for the implementation of boundary conditions used in
solving the Mukhanov-Sasaki equation in the context of inflation. The familiar
quantization procedure is reviewed, along with a discussion of where one might
expect deviations from the standard approach to arise. The proposed method
introduces a (model dependent) fitting function for the z"/z and a"/a terms in
the Mukhanov-Sasaki equation for scalar and tensor modes, as well as imposes
the boundary conditions at a finite conformal time. As an example, we employ a
fitting function, and compute the spectral index, along with its running, for a
specific inflationary model which possesses background equations that are
analytically solvable. The observational upper bound on the tensor to scalar
ratio is used to constrain the parameters of the boundary conditions in the
tensor sector as well. An overview on the generalization of this method is also
discussed.
