Related papers: Statistical Anisotropy from Anisotropic Inflation
In the context of (4+d)-dimensional general relativity, we propose an inflationary scenario wherein 3 spatial dimensions grow large, while d extra dimensions remain small. Our model requires that a self-interacting d-form acquire a vacuum…
Inflation is an early period of accelerated cosmic expansion, thought to be sourced by high energy physics. A key task today is to use the influx of increasingly precise observational data to constrain the plethora of inflationary models…
The recent observation of the cosmic microwave background anisotropy by the WMAP confirmed that the lower multipoles are considerably suppressed. From the standpoint of the cosmic variance, it is nothing but a statistical accident.…
Dynamics of the inflaton is studied when it interacts with boson and fermion fields and in minimal supersymmetric models. This encompasses multifield inflation models, such as hybrid inflation, and typical reheating models. For much of the…
Probing correlations among short and long-wavelength cosmological fluctuations is known to be decisive for deepening the current understanding of inflation at the microphysical level. Spectral distortions of the CMB can be caused by…
Recent results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe have been called a corroboration, or even a confirmation, of inflation. Yet, the results include features that require, at least, a significant distortion of what is usually meant…
A new inflationary scenario whose exponential potential $V(\Phi)$ has a quadratic dependence on the field $\Phi$ in addition to the standard linear term is confronted with the tree-year observations of the Wilkinson-Microwave Anisotropy…
Various data analyses of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) provide observational hints of statistical isotropy breaking. Some of these features can be studied within the framework of primordial vector fields in inflationary theories…
An introductory account is given of the modern understanding of the physics of the early Universe. Particular emphasis is placed on the paradigm of cosmological inflation, which postulates a period of accelerated expansion during the…
A rapid phase of accelerated expansion in the early universe, known as inflation, dilutes all matter except the vacuum induced quantum fluctuations. These are responsible for seeding the initial perturbations in the baryonic matter, the…
Models of cosmic inflation suggest that our universe underwent an early phase of accelerated expansion, driven by the dynamics of one or more scalar fields. Inflationary models make specific, quantitative predictions for several observable…
Temperature anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background offers a test of the fundamental symmetry of spacetime during cosmic inflation. Violation of rotational symmetry yields a distinct signature in the power spectrum of primordial…
The anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation contains information about the contents and history of the universe. We report new limits on cosmological parameters derived from the angular power spectrum measured in the first…
Slow-roll inflation generically makes several predictions: a flat Universe, primordial adiabatic density perturbations, and a stochastic gravity-wave background. Each inflation model will further predict specific relations between the…
Cosmology is nowadays going through a true revolution in the quantity and quality of observations that are capable of providing crucial information about the origin and evolution of the universe. In the first years of the next millenium we…
We consider a double-inflationary model with two massive scalar fields interacting only gravitationally in the context of a flat cold dark matter (CDM) Universe. The cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies produced in…
These lecture notes cover mainly three connected topics. In the first part we give a detailed treatment of cosmological perturbation theory. The second part is devoted to cosmological inflation and the generation of primordial fluctuations.…
Inflation creates large-scale cosmological density perturbations that are characterized by an isotropic, homogeneous, and Gaussian random distribution about a locally flat background. Even in a flat universe, the spatial curvature measured…
If the universe had a large curvature before inflation there is a deviation from the scale invariant perturbations of the inflaton at the beginning of inflation. This may have some effect on the CMB anisotropy at large angular scales. We…
Measuring spectral distortions (SDs) of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) will provide new constraints on previously unexplored scales of the primordial power spectrum, allowing us to extend the probed parameter space by several orders…