Related papers: Inflation with a Weyl term, or ghosts at work
We study the cosmology on the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker background in scalar-vector-tensor theories with a broken $U(1)$ gauge symmetry. For parity-invariant interactions arising in scalar-vector-tensor theories with second-order…
The cosmological observations of cosmic microwave background and large-scale structure indicate that our universe has a nearly scaling invariant power spectrum of the primordial perturbation. However, the exact origin for this primordial…
Ghost inflation is a well-known framework in which cosmological fluctuations can generate enhanced primordial non-Gaussianity, typically of the equilateral type. In its original form, however, it is in tension with current observational…
We present a simplified review of inflationary cosmology across various modified gravity theories. These include models based on curvature, torsion, and non-metricity. We explore how scalar fields interact with different geometric…
A class of vector-tensor theories arises naturally in the framework of quadratic gravity in spacetimes with linear vector distortion. Requiring the absence of ghosts for the vector field imposes an interesting condition on the allowed…
Models of inflation with antisymmetric tensor studied in the past are plagued with ghost instability even in an unperturbed FRW background. We show that it is possible to avoid ghosts in an unperturbed FRW background by considering the most…
We investigate inflationary cosmology by solving the effective action of the M-theory, which consists of the 11 dimensional supergravity and quartic terms of the Weyl tensor. The metric is simply expressed by two scale factors, one for the…
We revisit nonsingular cosmologies in which the limiting curvature hypothesis is realized. We study the cosmological perturbations of the theory and determine the general criteria for stability. For the simplest model, we find generic…
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…
Inflation may have been driven by a component which violated the Null-Energy Condition, thereby leading to {\it super inflation}. We provide the formalism to study cosmological perturbations when such a component is described by a scalar…
We compute the spectrum of cosmological perturbations in a scenario in which inflation is driven by radiation in a non-commutative space-time. In this scenario, the non-commutativity of space and time leads to a modified dispersion relation…
We compute the spectrum of scalar and tensor metric perturbations generated, as amplified vacuum fluctuations, during an epoch of dilaton-driven inflation of the type occurring naturally in string cosmology. In the tensor case the…
We derive the predictions of quantum gravity with fakeons on the amplitudes and spectral indices of the scalar and tensor fluctuations in inflationary cosmology. The action is $R+R^{2}$ plus the Weyl-squared term. The ghost is eliminated by…
We investigate the influence of boundary terms in the warm inflationary scenario, by considering that in the Einstein-Hilbert action the boundary can be described in terms of a Weyl-type geometry. The gravitational action, as well as the…
We study a class of non-local, action-based, and purely gravitational models. These models seek to describe a cosmology in which inflation is driven by a large, bare cosmological constant that is screened by the self-gravitation between the…
An epoch of accelerated expansion, or inflation, in the early universe solves several cosmological problems. While there are many models of inflation only recently has it become possible to discriminate between some of the models using…
Inflation produces super-horizon sized perturbations that ultimately return within the horizon and are thought to form the seeds of all observed large scale structure in the Universe. But inflationary predictions can only be compared with…
Dark matter and inflation are two key elements to understand the origin of cosmic structures in modern cosmology, and yet their exact physical models remain largely uncertain. The Weyl scaling invariant theory of gravity may provide a…
Phantom Cosmology provides an unique opportunity to "connect" the phantom driven (low en- ergy meV scale) dark energy phase to the (high energy GUT scale) inflationary era. This is possible because the energy density increases in phantom…
These lectures provide a pedagogical introduction to inflation and the theory of cosmological perturbations generated during inflation which are thought to be the origin of structure in the universe.