Related papers: Modulated Reheating and Large Non-Gaussianity in S…
We propose an alternative scenario to cosmic inflation for producing the initial seeds of cosmic structures. The cosmological fluctuations are generated by thermal fluctuation of the energy density of the ideal string gas in three compact…
We present an overview of inflationary models derived from string theory focusing mostly on closed string moduli as inflatons. After a detailed discussion of the eta-problem and different approaches to address it, we describe possible ways…
Cosmic inflation provides a compelling framework for explaining several observed features of our Universe, but its viability depends on an efficient reheating phase that converts the inflaton's energy into Standard Model particles. This…
This thesis is dedicated to the study of inflationary scenarios based on string theory. Inflation is a brief period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe which gives natural explanations for problems of the Standard Big Bang…
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…
In type IIB Fibre Inflation models the inflaton is a Kaehler modulus which is kinetically coupled to the corresponding axion. In this setup the curvature of the field space induces tachyonic isocurvature perturbations normal to the…
We demonstrate that cosmological perturbations can undergo amplification by parametric resonance during the preheating period following inflation, even on scales larger than the Hubble radius, without violating causality. A unified…
Reheating after R^2 inflation proceeds through gravitational particle production of conformally noninvariant fields. We argue that the nonvanishing expectation value of flat directions generic in supersymmetric theories break conformal…
The generation of large-scale magnetic fields in inflationary cosmology is explored, in particular, in a kind of moduli inflation motivated by racetrack inflation in the context of the Type IIB string theory. In this model, the conformal…
Protecting the inflationary potential from quantum corrections typically requires symmetries that constrain the form of couplings of the inflaton to other sectors. We will explore how these restrictions affect reheating in models with UV…
An exploratory study of the cosmology of moduli in string theory. Moduli are argued to be natural inflaton fields and lead to a robust inflationary cosmology in which inflation takes place at the top of domain walls. The amplitude of…
We investigate density perturbations generated through modulated reheating while inflation is driven by a conformally coupled scalar field. A large running of the spectral index is obtained, which reflects the basic nature of conformal…
We study an inflationary scenario where thermal inflation is followed by fast-roll inflation. This is a rather generic possibility based on the effective potentials of spontaneous symmetry breaking in the context of particle physics models.…
We construct a multi-field inflationary model consisting of multiple K\"ahler moduli derived from type IIB string compactification in the large volume limit. The model consists of both heavy and light fields, with the former being frozen…
We show that it is possible to combine an early phase of String Gas Cosmology which can explain the origin of the observed structures on cosmological scales with a short later period of power law inflation which creates spatial flatness.…
We present a type IIB 4D string model with stabilised moduli which is able to describe the history of the universe from inflation to quintessence. The underlying Calabi-Yau volume is controlled by two moduli which are stabilised by…
Several models of inflection point inflation with the volume modulus as the inflaton are investigated. Non-perturbative superpotentials containing two gaugino condensation terms or one such term with threshold corrections are considered. It…
Thermal inflation was proposed as a mechanism to dilute the density of cosmological moduli. Thermal inflation is driven by a complex scalar field possessing a large vacuum expectation value and a very flat potential, called a `flaton'. Such…
In cosmological models where local cosmic strings are formed at the end of a period of inflation, the perturbations are seeded both by the defects and by the quantum fluctuations. In a subset of these models, for example those based on…
Spectator field models such as the curvaton scenario and the modulated reheating are attractive scenarios for the generation of the cosmic curvature perturbation, as the constraints on inflation models are relaxed. In this paper, we discuss…