Related papers: Tachyon - Dilaton driven Inflation as an alpha' - …
We study inflation in a recently proposed gravitational effective field theory describing the trace anomaly. The theory requires an additional scalar which is massless in the early universe. This scalar -- referenced as an anomalyon --…
In this thesis, consisting of two main parts, we study observational signatures of cosmic (super)strings in the context of D-brane inflation and properties of scalar perturbations on generic homogeneous inflating backgrounds. In the first…
We demonstrate the attractor behavior of inflation driven by a scalar field or a tachyon field in the context of recently proposed four-dimensional effective gravity induced on the world-volume of a three-brane in five-dimensional Einstein…
We present a general set-up for inflation in string theory where the inflaton field corresponds to Wilson lines in compact space in the presence of magnetic fluxes. T-dualities and limits on the value of the magnetic fluxes relate this…
We study the dynamics of light-like tachyon condensation in a linear dilaton background using level-truncated open string field theory. The equations of motion are found to be delay differential equations. This observation allows us to…
The curvaton and the inhomogeneous reheating scenarios for the generation of the cosmological curvature perturbation on large scales represent an alternative to the standard slow-roll scenario where the observed density perturbations are…
In the framework of the Connes-Lott model based on noncommutative geometry, the basic features of a gauge theory in the presence of gravity are reviewed, in order to show the possible physical relevance of this scheme for inflationary…
If the inflaton is a heavy scalar field, it may equilibrate slower than some other degrees of freedom, e.g. non-Abelian gauge bosons. In this case, perturbations in the inflaton field and in a thermal plasma coexist from a given moment…
Inflation driven by a generic self-gravitating medium is an interesting alternative to study the impact of spontaneous spacetime symmetry breaking during a quasi de-Sitter phase, in particular the 4-dimensional diffeomorphism invariance of…
In this paper a quantum N = 4 super Yang-Mills theory perturbed by dilaton-coupled scalars and spinor fields is considered. The induced effective action for such a theory is calculated on a dilaton-gravitational background using the…
Inflationary scenarios in string theory often involve a large number of light scalar fields, whose presence can enrich the post-inflationary evolution of primordial fluctuations generated during the inflationary epoch. We provide a simple…
We construct inflationary models in the context of supergravity with orthogonal nilpotent superfields [1]. When local supersymmetry is gauge-fixed in the unitary gauge, these models describe theories with only a single real scalar (the…
We propose a non-oscillatory no-scale supergravity model of inflation (NO-NO inflation) in which the inflaton does not oscillate at the end of the inflationary era. Instead, the Universe is then dominated by the inflaton kinetic energy…
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…
We explore inflationary cosmology in a theory where there are two scalar fields which non-minimally couple to the Ricci scalar and an additional $R^2$ term, which breaks the conformal invariance. Particularly, we investigate the slow-roll…
In this thesis we will primarily demonstrate how additional scalar degrees of freedom - which are motivated from many high-energy embeddings - open up new observational windows onto the physics of inflation. We construct a Bayesian…
Inflation is a highly favoured theory for the early Universe. It is compatible with current observations of the cosmic microwave background and large scale structure and is a driver in the quest to detect primordial gravitational waves. It…
In this work we provide the missing link between two approaches aimed at characterizing the effect of long perturbation modes in Inflation. We consider the Inflationary Fossils' approach (arXiv:1203.0302 and related works) that…
Precise measurements of the microwave background anisotropy have confirmed the inflationary picture of approximately scale invariant, Gaussian primordial adiabatic density perturbations. However, there are some anomalies that suggest a…
The early time expansion of the space-time, namely inflation, is introduced to solve some cosmological problems. $F(R)$ gravity is a simple extension of the general relativity to induce the inflationary expansion. The precise observation of…