Related papers: A Minimal Inflation Scenario
We explore the inflationary phase of a scalar field with a kinetic term non-minimally coupled to gravity. We find that one of the slow-roll conditions is naturally consequence of the equation of motion of the scalar field. Thus, slow-roll…
We realize and study a model of hybrid inflation in the context of softly broken supersymmetry. The inflaton is taken to be a flat direction in the superfield space and, due to unsuppressed couplings, its soft supersymmetry breaking mass…
Inflation can occur near a point of inflection in the potential of flat directions of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. In this paper we elaborate on the complementarity between the bounds from Cosmic Microwave Background…
A new mechanism to control Planck-scale corrections to the inflationary eta parameter is proposed. A common approach to the eta problem is to impose a shift symmetry on the inflaton field. However, this symmetry has to remain unbroken by…
A model of chaotic inflation based on the theory of a scalar field with potential \lambda\phi^4 perfectly matches the observational data if one adds to it a tiny non-minimal coupling to gravity -\xi/2 \phi^2 R with \xi > 0.002. We describe…
We propose a model of inflation based on a simple variant of the NMSSM, called $\phi$NMSSM, where the additional singlet $\phi$ plays the role of the inflaton in hybrid (or inverted hybrid) type models. As in the original NMSSM, the…
Supergravity is a well-motivated theory beyond the standard model of particle physics, and a suitable arena to study high-energy physics at the early universe including inflation, whose observational evidences are growing more and more.…
We study a scale-invariant model of quadratic gravity with a non-minimally coupled scalar field. We focus on cosmological solutions and find that scale invariance is spontaneously broken and a mass scale naturally emerges. Before the…
We present the first quantum field theory model of inflation that is renormalizable in the matter sector, with a super-Hubble inflaton mass and sub-Planckian field excursions, which is thus technically natural and consistent with a…
The aim of this paper is to highlight the challenges and potential gains surrounding a coherent description of physics from the high-energy scales of inflation down to the lower energy scales probed in particle-physics experiments. As an…
We investigate cosmological moduli problem in the gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking (GMSB). A mini-inflation (oscillating inflation) takes place when a scalar field corresponding to the flat direction in GMSB oscillates along the…
We explore the possibility that a multiple-stage inflationary scenario based on supersymmetric GUT models, can account for the break at $k_b \simeq 0.05 h/Mpc$ in the power spectrum of galaxy clustering, while it reproduces the angular…
The temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background observed by COBE provide strong support for an inflationary phase in the early universe, below the GUT scale. We argue that a singlet field in a hidden sector of an effective…
We describe a simple mechanism that can lead to inflation within string-based brane-world scenarios. The idea is to start from a supersymmetric configuration with two parallel static Dp-branes, and slightly break the supersymmetry…
We consider low scale slow roll inflation driven by the gauge invariant flat directions {\bf udd} and {\bf LLe} of the Minimally Supersymmetric Standard Model at the vicinity of a saddle point of the scalar potential. We study the stability…
We provide an update on five relatively well motivated inflationary models in which the inflaton is a Standard Model singlet scalar field. These include i) the textbook quadratic and quartic potential models but with additional couplings of…
We propose a solution to the eta-problem in supergravity (SUGRA) hybrid inflation using a Nambu-Goldstone-like shift symmetry within a new class of models. The flatness of the tree-level inflaton potential is ensured by shift symmetry…
We discuss N=1 supergravity inflationary models based on two chiral multiplets, the inflaton and the goldstino superfield. Using superconformal methods for these models, we propose to replace the unconstrained chiral goldstino multiplet by…
This paper investigates a scale-invariant inflationary model characterized by a scalar field non-minimally coupled to gravity and a curvature term quadratic in the Ricci scalar. The model's dynamic is analyzed using a full numerical…
In the present thesis, using an effective field theory point of view, we explore theories of single-field inflation where higher derivative operators become relevant, affecting in a novel way the dynamics and therefore the observations. For…