Related papers: Thermal Inflation and the Gravitational Wave Backg…
Cosmological perturbations, originating in the quantum fluctuations of the fields that drive inflation, are observed to be nearly scale invariant at the largest scales. At smaller scales, however, perturbations are not severely constrained…
We investigate how perturbative reheating after inflation modifies the primordial gravitational wave (GW) spectrum generated by cosmological phase transitions. Within a specific inflationary setup, we show that the thermodynamic quantities…
We present a new signature by which to one could potentially discriminate between a spectrum of gravitational radiation generated by a self-ordering scalar field vs that of inflation, specifically a comparison of the magnitude of a flat…
We investigate the two-stage inflation regime in the theory of hybrid cosmological $\alpha$-attractors. The spectrum of inflationary perturbations is compatible with the latest Planck/BICEP/Keck results, thanks to the attractor properties…
We explore a dual scenario of generalized inflation and bounce cosmologies, producing a scale-invariant curvature perturbation spectrum. Bayesian analysis with pulsar timing array data identifies, for the first time, viable regions from…
We propose a new class of inflation model, G-inflation, which has a Galileon-like nonlinear derivative interaction of the form $G(\phi, (\nabla\phi)^2)\Box\phi$ in the Lagrangian with the resultant equations of motion being of second order.…
We point out that detectable inflationary tensor modes can be generated by particle or string sources produced during inflation, consistently with the requirements for inflation and constraints from scalar fluctuations. We show via examples…
Phase transitions in the early universe can readily create an observable stochastic gravitational wave background. We show that such a background necessarily contains anisotropies analogous to those of the cosmic microwave background (CMB)…
Motivated by recent progress in our understanding of the $B$-mode polarization of cosmic microwave background (CMB), which provides important information about the inflationary gravitational waves (IGWs), we study the possibility to acquire…
Models of inflation involving non-Abelian gauge field backgrounds can produce gravitational waves at an observable level with a preferred handedness. This asymmetry comes about because the non-Abelian background generates parity-violation…
The inflationary paradigm is an important cornerstone of the concordance cosmological model. However, standard inflation cannot fully address the transition from an early homogeneous and isotropic stage, to another one lacking such…
In this article we review the theory of cosmological inflation with a particular focus on the beautiful connection it provides between the physics of the very small and observations of the very large. We explain how quantum mechanical…
We propose a $\Lambda$-inflation model which explains a large fraction of the COBE signal by cosmic gravitational waves. The primordial density perturbations fulfil both the contraints of large-scale microwave background and galaxy cluster…
If the initial state of the inflaton field is taken to have a thermal distribution instead of the conventional zero particle vacuum state then the curvature power spectrum gets modified by a temperature dependent factor such that the…
We study chromo-natural inflation in the axiverse. More precisely, we investigate natural inflation with two axions coupled with a SU(2) gauge field. Assuming a hierarchy between the coupling constants, we find that for certain initial…
We discuss the gravitational waves (GW) in the context of vector inflation. We derive the action for tensor perturbations and find that tachyonic instabilities are present in most (but not all) of the inflationary models with large fields.…
Fluctuations in the intensity and polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe each contain clues about the nature of the earliest moments of time. The next generation of…
An important prediction of inflation is the production of a primordial stochastic gravitational wave background. Observing this background is challenging due to the weakness of the signal and the simultaneous presence of an astrophysical…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies from primordial magnetic fields are studied. In addition to the known passive and the compensated mode we discuss an inflationary magnetic mode in the curvature perturbation,…
Stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds (SGWBs) receive increasing attention and provide a new possibility to directly probe the early Universe. In the preheating process at the end of inflation, parametric resonance can generate large…