Related papers: Attraction towards an inflection point inflation
The inflationary scenario has become the paradigm of early universe cosmology, and - in conjuction with ideas from superstring theory - has led to speculations about an "inflationary multiverse". From a point of view of phenomenology, the…
We consider the extended supersymmetric Pati-Salam model which, for mu>0 and universal boundary conditions, succeeds to yield experimentally acceptable b-quark masses by moderately violating Yukawa unification. It is known that this model…
Recent work is reported on inflation model building in the context of supergravity and superstrings, with special emphasis on False Vacuum (`Hybrid') Chaotic Inflation. Globally supersymmetric models do not survive in generic supergravity…
During eternal inflation, a landscape of vacua can be populated by the nucleation of bubbles. These bubbles inevitably collide, and collisions sometimes displace the field into a new minimum in a process known as a classical transition. In…
We consider a possibility that one of the flat directions in the minimal supersymmetric standard model plays the role of the inflaton field and realizes large-field inflation. This is achieved by introducing a generalized shift symmetry on…
We construct a two-stage inflationary model which can accommodate early inflation at a scale $\Lambda_1$ as well as a second stage of inflation at $\Lambda_2$ with a single scalar field $\phi$. We use a symmetric potential, valid in a…
For a narrow band of values of the top quark and Higgs boson masses, the Standard Model Higgs potential develops a false minimum at energies of about $10^{16}$ GeV, where primordial Inflation could have started in a cold metastable state. A…
We consider spatially averaged inhomogeneous universe models and argue that, already in the absence of sources, an effective scalar field arises through foliating and spatially averaging inhomogeneous geometrical curvature invariants of the…
Cosmological inflation gives a natural answer for a variety of cosmological questions, including the horizon problem, the flatness problem, and others. However, inflation yields new questions relating to the flatness of the inflaton…
We consider inflation in a universe with a positive cosmological constant and a nonminimally coupled scalar field, in which the field couples both quadratically and quartically to the Ricci scalar. When considered in the Einstein frame and…
We consider a universe with a bulk viscous cosmic fluid, in a flat Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker geometry. We derive the conditions for the existence of inflation, and those which at the same time prevent the occurrence of…
We show that a class of Wess--Zumino models lead to inflation in supersymmetry and supergravity. This is due to the existence of a classically flat direction generic to these models. The pseudomodulus that parametrizes this flat direction…
We present a mechanism for the emergence of cosmic acceleration within the mean-field approximation of Group Field Theory models of quantum gravity. Depending on the interaction type, the resulting cosmological dynamics can either feature a…
A particular compensation-type solution of the main cosmological constant problem has been proposed recently, with two massless vector fields dynamically canceling an arbitrary cosmological constant \Lambda. The naive expectation is that…
We discuss the possibility to construct supergravity models with a single superfield describing inflation as well as the tiny cosmological constant $V \sim 10^{{-120}}$. One could expect that the simplest way to do it is to study models…
We consider a novel model of cosmic inflation. In our model one does not need any specific matter field to drive inflation, but inflation stems from the microscopic, Planck scale structure of spacetime, thus being of quantum gravitational…
We here explore a specific class of scalar field, dubbed quasi-quintessence which exhibits characteristics akin to ordinary matter. Specifically, we investigate under which conditions this fluid can mitigate the classical cosmological…
If in a finite universe, the tree-level vacuum is a symmetric superposition of coherent states, in each of which the inflaton field assumes a different, energy-minimizing mean value (vev), then the resulting energy is positive and decreases…
The smallness of the neutrino masses may be related to inflation. The minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) with small Dirac neutrino masses already has all the necessary ingredients for a successful inflation. In this model the…
High-scale string inflationary models are in well-known tension with low-energy supersymmetry. A promising solution involves models where the inflaton is the volume of the extra dimensions so that the gravitino mass relaxes from large…