Related papers: Testing Inflation: A Bootstrap Approach
We investigate the initiation of cosmic inflation, in full numerical relativity, from pre-inflationary scenarios with large tensor and vector fluctuations in the metric. These settings are characterized by having large values in the Weyl…
We study initial conditions for inflation in scenarios where the inflaton potential has a plateau shape. Such models are those most favored by Planck data and can be obtained in a large number of model classes. As a representative example,…
The most current observational data corroborate the Starobinsky model as one of the strongest candidates in the description of an inflationary regime. Motivated by such success, extensions of the Starobinsky model have been increasingly…
We draw attention to the possibility that inflation (i.e. accelerated expansion) might continue after the end of slow roll, during a period of fast oscillations of the inflaton field \phi . This phenomenon takes place when a mild…
Decoupling of heavy modes in effective low energy theory is one of the most fundamental concepts in physics. It tells us that modes must have a negligible effect on the physics of gravitational backgrounds with curvature radius larger than…
We comment on recently proposed dissipative inflationary models. It is shown that the strength of the inflationary expansion is related to a specific combination of thermodynamic variables which is known to measure the instability of…
String theory gives rise to various mechanisms to generate primordial inflation, of which ``brane inflation'' is one of the most widely considered. In this scenario, inflation takes place while two branes are approaching each other, and the…
This review article aims at presenting the theory of inflation. We first describe the background spacetime behavior during the slow-roll phase and analyze how inflation ends and the Universe reheats. Then, we present the theory of…
In the past decade, the importance of dissipation and fluctuation to inflationary dynamics has been realized and has led to a new picture of inflation called warm inflation. Although these phenomena are common to condensed matter systems,…
Recent studies, in the context of consistency conditions for rapid-turn and third order slow-roll inflation in two-field models, raised the question whether this regime can be sustained for more than a few e-folds of expansion. We answer…
We consider an inflationary universe scenario with multiple stages of inflation. The primary inflation, which may start at the Planck epoch, is followed by secondary inflations, which include the cosmological inflation that causes the…
I review the motivation for the early-time cosmic acceleration stage in expanding universe and discuss simple inflationary scenarios. Preheating and reheating are considered in great detail. This is a sample chapter from my book "Physical…
It is presumed that thermal fluctuations present during inflationary epoch can make inflaton scalar field to interact with other fields resulting in the existence of a thermal component during the inflationary period. The presence of this…
I give a general formulation of the constraints on models of inflation ended by a first order phase transition arising from the requirement that they do not produce too many large (observable) true vacuum voids -- the `big bubble problem'.…
The basic workings of inflationary models are summarized, along with the arguments that strongly suggest that our universe is the product of inflation. It is argued that essentially all inflationary models lead to (future-)eternal…
In this paper we explore the relationship between the existence of eternal inflation and the initial conditions leading to inflation. We demonstrate that past and future completion of inflation is related, in that past-incomplete inflation…
We argue that $\Lambda$-driven inflation must overshoot into an era of deflation. The deflationary period ends quickly with the creation of a hot dense thermal barrier to the forward propagation of quantum correlations from the period of…
We consider the torsional completion of gravity with spinor and scalar fields: we show how in this environment conditions of extreme symmetry or specific approximations imply the scalar field to be constant, so that slow-roll takes place…
We consider a model of inflation consisting a single fluid with a time-dependent equation of state. In this phenomenological picture, two periods of inflation are separated by an intermediate non-inflationary stage which can be either a…
Inflation of a universe filled by an elastic continuous medium is considered. Elastic inflation, while capable of describing current observations, is qualitatively different from standard inflationary models. The scalar and tensor modes…