Related papers: Nonlocal Inflation
Several recent proposals to embed inflation into high-energy physics rely on inflationary dynamics characterized by a strongly non-geodesic motion in negatively curved field space. This naturally leads to a transient instability of…
Inflationary cosmology is the leading explanation of the very early universe. Many different models of inflation have been constructed which fit current observational data. In this work theoretical and numerical methods for constraining the…
In spite of the phenomenological successes of the inflationary universe scenario, the current realizations of inflation making use of scalar fields lead to serious conceptual problems which are reviewed in this lecture. String theory may…
During inflation explicit perturbative computations of quantum field theories which contain massless, non-conformal fields exhibit secular effects that grow as powers of the logarithm of the inflationary scale factor. Starobinskii's…
We investigate the validity of effective field theory methods and the decoupling of heavy fields during inflation. Considering models of inflation in which the inflaton is coupled to a heavy (super-Hubble) degree of freedom initially in its…
We find a rather unique extension of inflationary scenario which avoids selfreproduction and thus resolves the problems of multiverse, predictability and initial conditions. In this theory the amplitude of the cosmological perturbations is…
We show that theories of inflation with multiple, rapidly turning fields can generate large amounts of non-Gaussianity. We consider a general theory with two fields, an arbitrary field-space metric, and a potential that supports sustained,…
We consider the generation of large-scale magnetic fields in slow-roll inflation. The inflaton field is described in a supergravity framework where the conformal invariance of the electromagnetic field is generically and naturally broken.…
N-flation is a radiatively stable scenario for chaotic inflation in which the displacements of $N \gg 1$ axions with decay constants $f_1 \le \ldots \le f_N < M_P$ lead to a super-Planckian effective displacement equal to the Pythagorean…
We present a superstring-inspired version of D-term inflation which does not lead to cosmic string formation and appears to satisfy the current CMB constraints. It differs from minimal D-term inflation by a second pair of charged…
Large-field inflation is an interesting and predictive scenario. Its non-trivial embedding in supergravity was intensively studied in the recent literature, whereas its interplay with supersymmetry breaking has been less thoroughly…
Inflation is well known to be difficult in the context of supergravity, if the potential is dominated by the $F$ term. Non-renormalizable terms generically give $|V''|\sim V/M^2$, where $V(\phi)$ is the inflaton potential and $M$ is the…
This is a review of models of inflation and of their predictions for the primordial non-Gaussianity in the density perturbations which are thought to be at the origin of structures in the Universe. Non-Gaussianity emerges as a key…
The Higgs field is an attractive candidate for the inflaton because it is an observationally confirmed fundamental scalar field. Importantly, it can be modeled by the most general renormalizable scalar potential. However, if the classical…
We study the generation of primeval magnetic fields during inflation era in nonlinear theories of electrodynamics. Although the intensity of the produced fields strongly depends on characteristics of inflation and on the form of…
Standard D-term inflation is studied in the framework of supergravity. D-term inflation produces cosmic strings, however it can still be compatible with CMB measurements without invoking any new physics. The cosmic strings contribution to…
Sourced gravitational waves in chromonatural inflation (CNI) can give rise to a chiral spectrum of tensor fluctuations that is considerably enhanced relative to the vacuum fluctuations. If the field content of CNI acts purely as a spectator…
We examine a non-Abelian SUSY $SU(2) \times U(1)$ gauge theory and a SUSY U(1) theory originally used to investigate the microphysics of cosmic strings in supersymmetric theories. We show that both theories automatically include hybrid…
We find successful models of D-brane/anti-brane inflation within a string context. We work within the GKP-KKLT class of type IIB string vacua for which many moduli are stabilized through fluxes, as recently modified to include `realistic'…
A systematic analysis of possibilities for realizing single-field F-term axion monodromy inflation via the flux-induced superpotential in type IIB string theory is performed. In this well-defined setting the conditions arising from moduli…