Related papers: Lectures on inflation and cosmological perturbatio…
Supersymmetric hybrid inflation is an exquisite framework to connect inflationary cosmology to particle physics at the scale of grand unification. Ending in a phase transition associated with spontaneous symmetry breaking, it can naturally…
The notion of inflation (past or present) in standard cosmological models is shown to be a consequence of a sufficiently high second law entropy production from the internal heating of the universal expansion. The longitudinal viscous…
A model of cosmological inflation is proposed in which field space is a hyperbolic plane. The inflaton never slow-rolls, and instead orbits the bottom of the potential, buoyed by a centrifugal force. Though initial velocities redshift away…
Cosmological $\alpha$-attractors stand out as particularly compelling models to describe inflation in the very early universe, naturally meeting tight observational bounds from cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. We investigate…
Until recently our knowledge of the primordial curvature perturbation was relatively modest. Ever since COBE delivered its map of data we know the scalar spectrum of primordial perturbations is approximately flat, with the power being only…
Cosmic inflation is the cornerstone of modern cosmology. In particular, following the Planck mission reports presented in 2015 regarding cosmic microwave background (CMB), there is an increasing interest in searching for inflaton candidates…
We develop in this thesis the principles governing the production of our universe's primordial inhomogeneities during its early phase of inflation. As a guiding thread we ask what physics during inflation can lead to perturbations so large…
Warm inflation is an interesting possibility of describing the early universe, whose basic feature is the absence, at least in principle, of a preheating or reheating phase. Here we analyze the dynamics of warm inflation generalizing the…
For simple inflationary models, we provide a consistent and complete scheme by which the macro-physical details of early universe inflation may be determined explicitly from the underlying micro-physical theory. We examine inflationary…
This is a very comprehensible review of some key issues in Modern Cosmology. Simple mathematical examples and analogies are always used, whenever available. The starting point is the well know Big Bang Cosmology (BBC). We deal with the…
We investigate the circumstances under which cosmic inflation can arise from very inhomogeneous initial conditions using numerical relativity simulations. Previous studies have not considered cases with non-zero momentum density due to…
We review conceptual aspects of inflationary scenarios able to produce primordial black holes, by amplifying the size of curvature fluctuations to the level required for triggering black hole formation. We identify general mechanisms to do…
A brief account is given of large-scale structure modelling based on the assumption that the initial perturbations arise from inflation. A recap is made of the implications of inflation for large-scale structure; under the widely applicable…
The particle production process is reviewed, through which cosmic inflation can produce a scale invariant superhorizon spectrum of perturbations of suitable fields starting from their quantum fluctuations. Afterwards, in the context of the…
Inflationary cosmology provides a natural mechanism for the generation of primordial perturbations which seed the formation of observed cosmic structure and lead to specific signals of anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background…
While cosmological inflation can erase primordial inhomogeneities, it is possible that inflation may not begin in a significantly inhomogeneous universe. This issue is particularly pressing in multifield scenarios, where even the…
Cosmological inflation generates a spectrum of density perturbations that can seed the cosmic structures we observe today. These perturbations are usually computed as the result of the gravitationally-induced spontaneous creation of…
This thesis is centered on three main subjects within the theory of inflation and cosmological perturbations: loop corrections to the power spectrum of curvature fluctuations generated during inflation; evolution of cosmological…
We review some perturbative results obtained in quantum gravity in an accelerating cosmological background. We then describe a class of non-local, purely gravitational models which have the correct structure to reproduce the leading…
We study primordial perturbations from hyperinflation, proposed recently and based on a hyperbolic field-space. In the previous work, it was shown that the field-space angular momentum supported by the negative curvature modifies the…