Probing the initial conditions of the Universe

I will describe the effects of

non-trivial initial quantum 

states for inflationary fluctuations

within the context of the effective

field theory for inflation. We find

that besides giving rise to large

non-Gaussianities from inflation, general initial states can also

have interesting implications for the consistency relation of the 

bispectrum.  In addition, they leave a distinct observable 

signature on the scale-dependence of the bias of dark matter 

halos. I will also discuss constraints on the initial state from 

current large scale structure data, including luminous red

galaxies and quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.