Related papers: A Meandering Inflaton
At its very beginning, the universe is believed to have grown exponentially in size via the mechanism of inflation. The almost scale-invariant density perturbation spectrum predicted by inflation is strongly supported by cosmological…
This thesis is dedicated to studying cosmological inflation, which is a period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe that is required to explain the observed anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. Inflation, when…
The inflationary scenario, which states that the early universe underwent a brief but dramatic period of accelerated spatial expansion, has become the current paradigm of early universe cosmology. Although inflationary cosmology has its…
Some of the consequences for inflationary cosmology of a scale dependence (running) in the tilt of the scalar perturbation spectrum are considered. In the limit where the running is itself approximately scale-invariant, a relationship is…
We consider cosmological inflation generated by a scalar field slowly rolling off from a de Sitter maximum of its potential. The models belong to the class of hilltop models and represent the most general model of this kind in which the…
We consider an inflationary kinetic function with an integrable pole that is traversed during inflation. This scenario leads to enhanced spectra of primordial scalar inhomogeneities with detectable signals: formation of primordial black…
In order to draw out the essential behavior of the universe, investigations of early universe cosmology often reduce the complex system to a simple integrable system. Inflationary models are of this kind as they focus on simple scalar field…
We develop a quantum-cosmological framework in which the inflationary potential emerges from the structure of the wave function of the universe rather than being postulated. Starting from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation for a flat…
We propose a mechanism for generating an inflationary phase in the early universe without resorting to any type of scalar field(s). Instead, this accelerated expansion is driven by a dynamical "cosmological constant" in the framework of…
An inflationary model in the framework of noncommutative space-time may generate a nontrivial running of the scalar spectral index, but usually induces a large tensor-to-scalar ratio simultaneously. With the latest observational data from…
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…
It is conjectured that inflation, taking account of quantum gravity, leads to a discrete spectrum of cosmological perturbations, instead of the continuous Gaussian spectrum predicted by standard field theory in an unquantized background.…
We study the effects of the interaction terms between the inflaton fields on the inflationary dynamics in multi-field models. With power law type potential and interactions, the total number of e-folds may get considerably reduced and can…
Inflationary cosmology has provided a predictive and phenomenologically very successful scenario for early universe cosmology. Attempts to implement inflation using scalar fields, however, lead to models with serious conceptual problems. I…
The cosmon field responsible for dynamical dark energy can induce an inflationary period in early cosmology. Details depend on dilatation symmetry breaking terms in its potential and kinetic term that are relevant only during early stages…
Inflationary cosmology is developed in the second Randall-Sundrum braneworld scenario, where the accelerated expansion arises through potentials that are too steep to drive inflation in conventional cosmology. A relationship between the…
Thermal inflation was proposed as a mechanism to dilute the density of cosmological moduli. Thermal inflation is driven by a complex scalar field possessing a large vacuum expectation value and a very flat potential, called a `flaton'. Such…
We consider curved space quantum corrections to the equations of motion of the inflaton field in the early Universe. Using the stochastic formalism in phase space, we demonstrate that the quantum corrected evolution of the inflaton can…
It is shown that a large class of higher-order (i.e. non-quadratic) scalar kinetic terms can, without the help of potential terms, drive an inflationary evolution starting from rather generic initial conditions. In many models, this…
We consider an inflationary model inspired in the low energy limit of string theory. In this model, the scale factor grows exponentially with time. A perturbation study is performed, and we show that there is a mode which displays an…