Related papers: Hunting Down the Best Model of Inflation with Baye…
We compute the Bayesian evidence and complexity of 193 slow-roll single-field models of inflation using the Planck 2013 Cosmic Microwave Background data, with the aim of establishing which models are favoured from a Bayesian perspective.…
Bayesian inference techniques are used to investigate situations where an additional light scalar field is present during inflation and reheating. This includes (but is not limited to) curvaton-type models. We design a numerical pipeline…
We discuss the model selection problem for inflationary cosmology. We couple ModeCode, a publicly-available numerical solver for the primordial perturbation spectra, to the nested sampler MultiNest, in order to efficiently compute Bayesian…
We review the constraints that the recently released Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Planck data put on inflation and we argue that single field slow-roll inflationary scenarios (with minimal kinetic term) are favored. Then, within this…
A new family of inflationary models is introduced and analysed. The behaviour of the parameters characterising the models suggest preferred values, which generate the most interesting testable predictions. Results are further improved if…
Future astrophysical datasets promise to strengthen constraints on models of inflation, and extracting these constraints requires methods and tools commensurate with the quality of the data. In this paper we describe ModeCode, a new,…
We calculate the Bayesian evidences for a class of Ekpyrotic universe models, and compare with a model of single field inflation with a Higgs-type potential. Combining parsimony and observational constraints, this gives us a systematic way…
We consider small-field models which invoke the usual framework for the effective field theory, and large-field models which go beyond that. Present and future possibilities for discriminating between the models are assessed, on the…
How much more will we learn about single-field inflationary models in the future? We address this question in the context of Bayesian design and information theory. We develop a novel method to compute the expected utility of deciding…
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…
Even simple inflationary scenarios have many free parameters. Beyond the variables appearing in the inflationary action, these include dynamical initial conditions, the number of fields, and couplings to other sectors. These quantities are…
These lecture notes have been written for a short introductory course on the status of inflation after Planck and BICEP2, given at the Xth Modave School of Mathematical Physics. The first objective is to give an overview of the theory of…
Multifield models of inflation with nonminimal couplings are in excellent agreement with the recent results from {\it Planck}. Across a broad range of couplings and initial conditions, such models evolve along an effectively single-field…
We perform a Bayesian analysis for small field models of inflation, using the most recent datasets produced by Planck`18, ACTPol, and BICEP3. We employ Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) to perform analyses with model coefficients, instead of…
We explore inflation via the effective potential of the minimal Wess-Zumino model, considering both the real and imaginary components of the complex field. Using transport techniques, we calculate the full allowed range of $n_s$, $r$ and…
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…
Bayesian evidence is a standard tool used for comparing the ability of different models to fit available data and is used extensively in cosmology. However, since the evidence calculation involves performing an integral of the likelihood…
Modern cosmological data demand modern data analysis techniques. We introduce BayOp, a new likelihood sampling and maximisation method which is based on the Bayesian Optimisation algorithm and learns a function instead of randomly sampling…
We investigate the initial conditions problem for multifield inflation. In these scenarios the pre-inflationary dynamics can be chaotic, increasing the sensitivity of the onset of inflation to the initial data even in the homogeneous limit.…
In this work we study four well-known inflationary scenarios that are reported by the most recent Planck observations: Natural inflation, Hilltop quartic inflation, Starobinsky inflationary model, and Large field power-law potentials…