Related papers: Enhanced Non-Gaussianity from Excited Initial Stat…
The BICEP2 collaboration has for the first time observed the B-mode polarization associated with inflationary gravitational waves. Their result has some discomfiting implications for the validity of an effective theory approach to…
Entangled inflationary quantum states offer an interesting alternative to the standard Bunch-Davies vacuum. While they can be viewed from the point of view of a theory of effective initial states, it has been unclear exactly how such states…
The late-time effect of primordial non-Gaussianity offers a window into the physics of inflation and the very early Universe. In this work we study the consequences of a particular class of primordial non-Gaussianity that is fully…
Motivated by the possibility of inflation in the cosmic landscape, which may be approximated by a complicated potential, we study the density perturbations in multi-field inflation with a random potential. The random potential causes the…
A scenario with two subsequent periods of inflationary expansion in the very early universe is examined. The model is based on a potential motivated by symmetries being found in field theory at high energy. For various parameter sets of the…
In the context of inflation, non-vacuum initial states for cosmological perturbations that possess a built in scale are studied. It is demonstrated that this assumption leads to a falsifiable class of models. The question of whether they…
How sensitive are the predictions of inflation to pre-inflationary conditions when the number of efolds of inflation is not too large? In an attempt to address this question, we consider a simple model where the inflationary era is preceded…
According to inflationary cosmology, the CMB anisotropy gives an opportunity to test predictions of new physics hypotheses. The initial state of quantum fluctuations is one of the important options at high energy scale, as it can affect…
We consider a two-field model for inflation where the second order metric perturbations can be amplified by a parametric resonance during preheating. We demonstrate that there can arise a considerable enhancement of non-Gaussianity sourced…
We propose optimal estimators for bispectra from excited states. Two common properties of such bispectra are the enhancement in the collinear limit, and the prediction of oscillating features. We review the physics behind excited states and…
We study the non-Gaussian features in single-field slow-roll inflationary scenario where inflation is preceded by a radiation era. In such a scenario both bispectrum and trispectrum non-Gaussianities are enhanced. Interestingly, the…
Scalar fields with an energy density dominated by its kinetic part may have played a relevant role in the very early stages of the Universe. Compared to the standard inflationary paradigm, they may lead to modifications in observable…
Primordial non-Gaussianity generated in an inflationary model where inflation is preceded by a radiation era is discussed. It is shown that both bispectrum and trispectrum non-Gaussianities are enhanced due to the presence of…
We employ the effective field theory approach for multi-field inflation which is a generalization of Weinberg's work. In this method the first correction terms in addition to standard terms in the Lagrangian have been considered. These…
There is an apparent power deficit relative to the $\Lambda$CDM prediction of the CMB spectrum at large scales, which, though not yet statistically significant, persists from WMAP to Planck data. Proposals that invoke some form of initial…
We explore the cosmological consequences of having the fluctuations of the inflaton field entangled with those of another scalar, within the context of a toy model consisting of non-interacting, minimally coupled scalars in a fixed de…
We compute a novel type of large non-Gaussianity due to small periodic features in general single field inflationary models. We show that the non-Bunch-Davies vacuum component generated by features, although has a very small amplitude, can…
When modelling inflaton fluctuations as a free quantum scalar field, the initial vacuum is conventionally imposed at the infinite past. This is called the Bunch-Davies (BD) vacuum. If however an asymptotically Minkowskian past does not…
Inflation can be supported in very steep potentials if it is generated by rapidly turning fields, which can be natural in negatively curved field spaces. The curvature perturbation, $\zeta$, of these models undergoes an exponential,…
We study a quantum quench of the mass and the interaction in the Sinh-Gordon model starting from a large initial mass and zero initial coupling. Our focus is on the determination of the expansion of the initial state in terms of post-quench…