Related papers: Testing Inflation with Dark Matter Halos
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…
Deviations from Gaussian statistics of the cosmological density fluctuations, so-called primordial non-Gaussianities (NG), are one of the most informative fingerprints of the origin of structures in the universe. Indeed, they can probe…
Long-short mode coupling during inflation, encoded in the squeezed bispectrum of curvature perturbations, induces a dependence of the local, small-scale power spectrum on long-wavelength perturbations, leading to a scale-dependent halo…
Cosmic inflation may have led to non-Gaussian initial conditions that cannot be fully parametrised by 3- and/or 4-point functions. In this work, we discuss various strategies to search for primordial non-Gaussianity beyond polyspectra with…
The most direct probe of non-Gaussian initial conditions has come from bispectrum measurements of temperature fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background and of the matter and galaxy distribution at large scales. Such bispectrum…
In this paper, we show how the structure of the landscape potential of the primordial Universe may be probed through the properties of the primordial density perturbations responsible for the origin of the cosmic microwave background…
A significant abundance of primordial black hole (PBH) dark matter can be produced by curvature perturbations with power spectrum $\Delta_\zeta^2(k_{\mathrm{peak}})\sim \mathcal{O}(10^{-2})$ at small scales, associated with the generation…
We propose a new single field inflation model in which the usual slow-roll inflation is joined to a new period of slow-climb and slow-roll inflation through a short intermediate non-inflationary phase. We then show that primordial curvature…
In the framework of inflationary models with non-vacuum initial states for cosmological perturbations, we study non-Gaussian signatures on the cosmic microwave background radiation produced by a broken-scale-invariant model which…
We propose a new mechanism to generate primordial curvature perturbations, based on the resonant production of particles during inflation. It is known that this phenomenon can trap the inflaton for a fraction of e-fold. This effect is…
We present a generic inference method for inflation models from observational data by the usage of higher-order statistics of the curvature perturbation on uniform density hypersurfaces. This method is based on the calculation of the…
The purpose of these lectures is to give a pedagogical introduction to inflation and the production of primordial perturbations, as well as a review of some of the latest developments in this domain. After a short introduction, we review…
Cosmic inflation provides a window to the highest energy densities accessible in nature, far beyond those achievable in any realistic terrestrial experiment. Theoretical insights into the inflationary era and its observational probes may…
Inflationary scenarios in string theory often involve a large number of light scalar fields, whose presence can enrich the post-inflationary evolution of primordial fluctuations generated during the inflationary epoch. We provide a simple…
We study a model where two scalar fields, that are subdominant during inflation, decay into radiation some time after inflation has ended but before primordial nucleosynthesis. Perturbations of these two curvaton fields can be responsible…
We are on the verge of the first precision testing of the inflationary cosmology as a model for the origin of structure in the Universe. I review the key predictions of inflation which can be used as observational tests, in the sense of…
In this paper we analyse three models of the early universe, for which the respective mechanisms for generating the curvature perturbation are considered disparate. We find that in fact the mechanisms are very similar, and hence explain why…
We perform a general study of the primordial scalar non-Gaussianities in multi-field inflationary models in Einstein gravity. We consider models governed by a Lagrangian which is a general function of the scalar fields and their first…
We study the impact of primordial non-Gaussianity on the density profile of dark matter halos by using the semi-analytical model introduced recently by Dalal {\it et al.} which relates the peaks of the initial linear density field to the…
We propose a model for cosmic inflation which is based on an effective description of strongly interacting, nonsupersymmetric matter within the framework of dynamical Abelian projection and centerization. The underlying gauge symmetry is…