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Inflation predicts primordial scalar perturbations with a nearly scale-invariant spectrum and a spectral index approximately unity (the Harrison--Zel'dovich (HZ) spectrum). The first important step for inflationary cosmology is to check the…
We investigate models of `intermediate' inflation, where the scale factor $a(t)$ grows as $a(t) = \exp (A t^f)$, $0 < f < 1$, $A$ constant. These solutions arise as exact analytic solutions for a given class of potentials for the inflaton…
In this paper, we present quantitative constraints on the scalar field potential for a general class of inflationary models. (1) We first consider the reconstruction of the inflationary potential for given primordial density fluctuation…
We study the possibility of a heavy scalar or pseudoscalar in TeV-scale beyond the Standard Model scenarios being the inflaton of the early universe in light of the recent O(750) GeV diphoton excess at the LHC. We consider a scenario in…
The increasingly stringent observational bounds on primordial gravitational waves strongly constrain inflationary model building, favoring scenarios that predict highly suppressed tensor perturbations. While many viable constructions rely…
We investigate a standard minimally-coupled scalar-field inflationary scenario, which is based on a new potential, with suitably generalized plateau features, that leads to extra small tensor-to-scalar ratios. In particular, we consider a…
One method to reconstruct the scalar field potential of inflation is a perturbative approach, where the values of the potential and its derivatives are calculated as an expansion in departures from the slow-roll approximation. They can then…
We consider a quantum corrected inflation scenario driven by a generic GUT or Standard Model type particle model whose scalar field playing the role of an inflaton has a strong non-minimal coupling to gravity. We show that currently widely…
We explore the types of slow-roll inflationary potentials that result in scalar perturbations with a constant spectral index, i.e., perturbations that may be described by a single power-law spectrum over all observable scales. We devote…
Features during inflation and reionization leave corresponding features in the temperature and polarization power spectra that could potentially explain anomalies in the Planck 2015 data but require a joint analysis to disentangle. We study…
We show how observations of the perturbation spectra produced during inflation may be used to constrain the parameters of general scalar-tensor theories of gravity, which include both an inflaton and dilaton field. An interesting feature of…
We study the inflationary perturbations in general (classically) scale-invariant theories. Such scenario is motivated by the hierarchy problem and provides natural inflationary potentials and dark matter candidates. We analyse in detail all…
The large-scale structure of the universe suggests that the physics underlying its early evolution is scale-free. This was the historic motivation for the Harrison-Zel'dovich-Peebles spectrum and for inflation. Based on a hydrodynamical…
The simplest realizations of the new inflationary scenario typically give rise to primordial density fluctuations which deviate logarithmically from the scale free Harrison - Zeldovich spectrum. We consider a number of such examples and, in…
We extract parameters relevant for distinguishing among single-field inflation models from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) three-year data set, and also from WMAP in combination with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)…
It has been suggested that the effects of renormalization significantly reduce the amplitude of the inflationary spectra at scales measurable in the cosmic microwave background. Via a gauge-invariant analysis, we compute the renormalized…
We show how observations of the density perturbation (scalar) spectrum and the gravitational wave (tensor) spectrum allow a reconstruction of the potential responsible for cosmological inflation. A complete functional reconstruction or a…
We reconsider the predictions of inflation for the spectral index of scalar (energy density) fluctuations (n_s) and the tensor/scalar ratio (r) using a discrete, model-independent measure of the degree of fine-tuning required to obtain a…
We consider the most minimal scale invariant extension of the standard model that allows for successful radiative electroweak symmetry breaking and inflation. The framework involves an extra scalar singlet, that plays the r\^ole of the…
We extend a previous analysis concerning cosmological fluids with generalized equations of state in order to study inflationary scenarios. In the framework of the slow-roll approximation we find the expressions for the perturbation…