Related papers: Initial conditions in hybrid inflation: exploratio…
A generic non-minimal coupling can push any higher-order terms of the scalar potential sufficiently far out in field space to yield observationally viable plateau inflation. We provide analytic and numerical evidence that this generically…
The possibility of the resilience of the beginning of inflation under unfavorable conditions is examined by considering the initial state of the inflaton field to be in the form of a relativistic gas with some of its properties in close…
Quantum fast-roll initial conditions for the inflaton which are different from the classical fast-roll conditions and from the quantum slow-roll conditions can lead to inflation that last long enough. These quantum fast-roll initial…
Trapped inflation is a mechanism in which particle production from the moving inflaton is the main source of friction in the inflaton equation of motion. The produced fields source inflaton perturbations, which dominate over the vacuum…
We consider a class of multi-component hybrid inflation models whose evolution may be analytically solved under the slow-roll approximation. We call it multi-brid inflation (or $n$-brid inflation where $n$ stands for the number of inflaton…
In the framework of effective field theories with prominent helicity-0 and helicity-1 fields coupled to each other via a dimension-3 operator, we study the dynamics of inflation driven by the helicity-0 mode, with a given potential energy,…
We examine a wide class of multi-field inflationary models based on fields that decay or stabilize during inflation in a staggered fashion. The fields driving assisted inflation are on flat, short stretches, before they encounter a sharp…
We investigate the observational signatures of many-field inflation and present analytic expressions for the spectral index as a function of the prior. For a given prior we employ the central limit theorem and the horizon crossing…
We investigate, in a model-independent way, the conditions required to obtain a satisfactory model of extended inflation in which inflation is brought to an end by a first-order phase transition. The constraints are that the correct present…
We address the problem of the large initial field values in chaotic inflation and propose a remedy in the framework of the so-called assisted inflation. We demonstrate that a 4-dimensional theory of multiple, scalar fields with initial…
Inverted hybrid inflation (in which the inflaton field slowly rolls away from the origin, giving a spectral index $n\lsim 1$) is an appealing variant of the more usually studied hybrid model. Analysing the model alongside the ordinary…
We use the 3+1 formalism of numerical relativity to investigate the robustness of Starobinsky and Higgs inflation to inhomogeneous initial conditions, in the form of either field gradient or kinetic energy density. Sub-Hubble and…
The simplicity of the CMB data, so well described by single-field inflation, raises the question whether there might be an equally simple multi-field realization consistent with the observations. We explore the idea that an approximate…
We investigate whether inflation requires finely tuned initial conditions in order to explain the degree of flatness and homogeneity observed in the Universe. We achieve this by using the Eisenhart lift, which can be used to write any…
Conditional Monte Carlo (CMC) has been widely used for sensitivity estimation with discontinuous integrands as a standard simulation technique. A major limitation of using CMC in this context is that finding conditioning variables to ensure…
Magnetic fields occupying the voids of the large scale structure may be a relic from the Early Universe originating from either Inflation or from cosmological phase transitions. We explore the possibility of identifying the inflationary…
In this paper we propose a novel unified cosmological model that connects a pre-inflationary epoch, starting at the Planckian time, with the onset of inflation within a single scalar-field framework. The pre-inflationary phase is…
We investigate the quantum cosmological tunneling scenario for inflationary models. Within a path-integral approach, we derive the corresponding tunneling probability distribution. A sharp peak in this distribution can be interpreted as the…
Within the inflationary scenario, Planck scale physics should have affected the comoving modes' initial conditions and early evolution, thereby potentially affecting the inflationary predictions for the cosmic microwave background (CMB).…
Small-field inflation (SFI) is widely considered to be unnatural because an extreme fine-tuning of the initial condition is necessary for sufficiently large e-folding. In this paper, we show that the unnaturally-looking initial condition…