Related papers: Breakdown of Semiclassical Methods in de Sitter Sp…
We study the decay of scalar fields, in particular the inflaton, into lighter scalars in a De Sitter spacetime background. After providing a practical definition of the rate, we focus on the case of an inflaton interacting with a massless…
In expanding FRW spacetimes, it is usually the case that homogeneous scalar fields redshift and their amplitudes approach limiting values: Hubble friction usually ensures that the field relaxes to its minimum energy configuration, which is…
We develop a novel framework for describing quantum fluctuations in field theory, with a focus on cosmological applications. Our method uniquely circumvents the use of operator/Hilbert-space formalism, instead relying on a systematic…
We investigate the range of inflationary universe models driven by scalar fields possessing a general interaction potential of the form $V(\phi) = V_0 \phi^n \exp(-\lambda \phi^m)$. Power-law, de Sitter and intermediate inflationary…
We present a new approach to constructing inflationary models in closed universes. Conformal embedding of closed-universe models in a de Sitter background suggests a quantisation condition on the available conformal time. This condition…
We discuss the possibility that dark matter corresponds to an oscillating scalar field coupled to the Higgs boson. We argue that the initial field amplitude should generically be of the order of the Hubble parameter during inflation, as a…
The implementation of a Planck-scale high frequency and short wavelength cutoff in quantum theories on expanding backgrounds may have potentially nontrivial implications, such as the breaking of local Lorentz invariance and the existence of…
Recently multi-field inflation models that can produce large scalar fluctuations on small scales have drawn a lot of attention, primarily because they could lead to primordial black hole production and generation of large second-order…
The "de Sitter constraint" on the space of effective scalar field theories consistent with superstring theory provides a lower bound on the slope of the potential of a scalar field which dominates the evolution of the Universe, e.g., a…
It has recently been shown that a Hagedorn phase of string gas cosmology can provide a causal mechanism for generating a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of scalar metric fluctuations, without the need for an intervening period of de Sitter…
Cosmological acceleration is difficult to accommodate in theories of fundamental interactions involving supergravity and superstrings. An alternative is that the acceleration is not universal but happens in a large localized region, which…
We provide an inhomogeneous solution concerning the dynamics of a real self interacting scalar field minimally coupled to gravity in a region of the configuration space where it performs a slow rolling on a plateau of its potential. During…
We consider a class of non-linear supersymmetric hyperbolic sigma models with long-range interactions on boxes in $\mathbb{Z}^d$ and on a hierarchical lattice. We prove that the random field associated to a marginal in horospherical…
One of the simplest possible candidates for dark matter is a stable scalar singlet beyond the Standard Model. If its mass is below the Hubble scale during inflation, long-wavelength modes of this scalar will be excited during inflation, and…
We discuss the cosmological implications of the string swampland conjectures for late-time cosmology, and test them against a wide range of state of the art cosmological observations. The refined de Sitter conjecture constrains either the…
In the hyperbolic slicing of de Sitter space appropriate for open universe models, a curvature scale is present and supercurvature fluctuations are possible. In some cases, the expansion of a scalar field in the Bunch-Davies vacuum includes…
We study constant classical electric fields and the Schwinger effect in de Sitter space, with potential implications for magnetogenesis and inflationary dark matter production. Treating the photon as a dynamical field, we show that…
We study the quasi-normal modes of asymptotically anti-de Sitter black holes in a class of shift-symmetric Horndeski theories where a gravitational scalar is derivatively coupled to the Einstein tensor. The space-time differs from exact…
We discuss the cosmological consequences of an interacting model in the dark sector in which the $\Lambda$ component evolves as a truncated power series of the Hubble parameter. In order to constrain the free parameters of the model we…
We use holography to study dS-invariant states of non-conformal, strongly coupled quantum field theories in four-dimensional de Sitter space. We show that out-of-equilibrium effects can sustain the exponential inflation within the regime of…