Related papers: Primordial Black Holes, Eternal Inflation, and the…
We study the constraints on the inflationary parameter space derived from the 3 year WMAP dataset using ``slow roll reconstruction'', using the SDSS galaxy power spectrum to gain further leverage where appropriate. This approach inserts the…
Primordial black hole (PBH) abundance limits constrain the primordial power spectrum, and hence models of inflation, on scales far smaller than those probed by cosmological observations. Single field inflation models which are compatible…
We present new single field inflationary scenarios that produce the critical abundance of primordial black holes as dark matter reconstructing the inflaton potential from an input power spectrum. The method is exact in the slow roll…
Primordial black holes may arise through ultra slow-roll inflation. In this work we study a toy model of ultra slow-roll inflation with a shallow dip. The ultra slow-roll stage enhances the curvature perturbations and thus the primordial…
We assay how inflationary models whose properties are dominated by the dynamics of a single scalar field are constrained by cosmic microwave background (CMB) data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). We classify…
We derive analytic bounds on the shape of the primordial power spectrum in the context of single-field inflation. In particular, the steepest possible growth has a spectral index of $n_s - 1 = 4$ once transients have died down. Its primary…
[Abridged] The primordial scalar power spectrum is well constrained on large scales, primarily by the observations of the anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Over the last few years, it has been recognized that a sharp…
All single-field inflationary models invoke varying degrees of tuning in order to account for cosmological observations. Mechanisms that generate primordial black holes (PBHs) from enhancement of primordial power at small scales posit…
Primordial black holes (PBHs) provide an exciting prospect for accounting for dark matter. In this paper, we consider inflationary models that incorporate realistic features from high-energy physics -- including multiple interacting scalar…
We introduce a new method for applying an inflationary prior to a cosmological dataset that includes relations between observables at arbitrary order in the slow roll expansion. The process is based on the inflationary flow equations, and…
We study inflation driven by a scalar potential arising from composite-sector dynamics, inspired by generalized composite Higgs models. The introduction of a non-minimal coupling, possessing the same functional form as the potential,…
The running-mass inflation model, which has strong motivation from particle physics, predicts density perturbations whose spectral index is strongly scale-dependent. For a large part of parameter space the spectrum rises sharply to short…
Primordial Black Holes (PBHs) may form in the early Universe, from the gravitational collapse of large density perturbations, generated by large quantum fluctuations during inflation. Since PBHs form from rare over-densities, their…
We perform a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis of a simple yet generic multifield inflation model characterized by two scalar fields coupled to each other and nonminimally coupled to gravity, fit to Planck 2018 cosmic microwave…
We constrain slow-roll inflationary models using the recent WMAP data combined with data from the VSA, CBI, ACBAR and 2dF experiments. We find the slow-roll parameters to be $0 < \epsilon_1 < 0.032$ and $\epsilon_2 + 5.0 \epsilon_1 = 0.036…
It has been shown that black holes would have formed in the early Universe if, on any given scale, the spectral amplitude of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) exceeds 10^(-4). This value is within the bounds allowed by astrophysical…
I examine the status of inflationary cosmology in light of the first-year data from the WMAP satellite, focusing on the simplest models of inflation: those driven by a single scalar field. The WMAP observation of the Cosmic Microwave…
We develop in this thesis the principles governing the production of our universe's primordial inhomogeneities during its early phase of inflation. As a guiding thread we ask what physics during inflation can lead to perturbations so large…
We propose a simple analytic fit for the power spectrum of scalar (curvature) perturbations during inflation, in order to describe slow roll of inflaton and formation of primordial black holes in the early universe, in the framework of…
We report on a study of the natural warm inflationary paradigm (WNI). We show two important new results arise in this model. One is that the observational constraints on the primordial power spectrum from the cosmic microwave background…