Related papers: Possibly Large Corrections to the Inflationary Obs…
While moving down the potential on its classical slow roll trajectory, the inflaton field is subject to quantum jumps, which take it up or down the potential at random. In "stochastic inflation", the impact of these quantum jumps is modeled…
Inflation is a promising solution to many problems of the standard Big-Bang cosmology. Nevertheless, inflationary models have proved less compelling. In this chapter, we discuss why supersymmetry has led to more natural models of inflation.…
We propose a new version of the hybrid inflation scenario that produces a significantly tilted n>1 spectrum of curvature perturbations. This may happen in supersymmetric models where the inflaton field acquires a mass proportional to the…
Inflation is an early period of accelerated cosmic expansion, thought to be sourced by high energy physics. A key task today is to use the influx of increasingly precise observational data to constrain the plethora of inflationary models…
We revisit a two-component inflaton model with a turning trajectory in the field space, where the field slowly rolls down along the trajectory. We consider the case when the effective mass in the direction perpendicular to the trajectory,…
One of the fundamental questions in inflation is how to characterize the structure of different types of models in the field theoretic landscape. Proposals in this direction include attempts to directly characterize the formal structure of…
We review the dynamics of spectator scalar fields non-minimally coupled to gravity in the post-inflationary Universe, with particular emphasis on scenarios where the end of inflation is followed by a period of kination. In this context, the…
We explore two saddle point inflationary scenarios in the context of higher order corrections related to different generalisations of general relativity. Firstly, we deal with Jordan frame Starobinsky potential, for which we identify a…
In this paper we will discuss analytically the perturbations created from a slowly rolling subdominant spectator field which decays much before the end of inflation. The quantum fluctuations of such a spectator field can seed perturbations…
Inflationary predictions based on the linear theory of cosmological perturbations are related to the two point function of a (second quantized) real scalar free field during the accelerated stage. Such a two point function is finite, in…
We study the metric perturbations produced during inflation in models with two scalar fields evolving simultaneously. In particular, we emphasize how the large-scale curvature perturbation $\zeta$ on fixed energy density hypersurfaces may…
Models of axion inflation are particularly interesting since they provide a natural justification for the flatness of the potential over a super-Planckian distance, namely the approximate shift-symmetry of the inflaton. In addition, most of…
We explain why it is so difficult and perhaps even impossible to increase the cosmological tensor-to-scalar perturbation ratio during the post-inflationary evolution of the universe. Nevertheless, contrary to some recent claims, tensor…
We show explicitly some exciting features of double-inflation: (i) it can often lead to strongly correlated adiabatic and entropy (isocurvature) power spectra. (ii) The two-field slow-roll consistency relations can be violated when the…
This study examines how inflationary dynamics are affected by $f(R)$ theories with a non-minimal coupling between matter and curvature. Both positive and negative corrections to the minimal coupling of General Relativity are considered, and…
Curvatons are light (compared to the Hubble scale during inflation) spectator fields during inflation that potentially contribute to adiabatic curvature perturbations post-inflation. They can alter CMB observables such as the spectral index…
I investigate multi-field inflationary models with fields that decay during inflation, leading to staggered inflation. This feature is natural in many models motivated by string theory, for instance if inflatons are related to interbrane…
In the framework of chaotic inflation we study the case of a massive scalar field using a semiclassical approach. We derive the energy density fluctuations in the infrared sector generated by matter field and gauge-invariant metric…
A generic feature of inflationary models in supergravity/string constructions is vacuum misalignment for the moduli fields. The associated production of moduli particles leads to an epoch in the post-inflationary history in which the energy…
In this paper we investigate the implications of having a varying second slow-roll index on the canonical scalar field inflationary dynamics. We shall be interested in cases that the second slow-roll can take small values and…