Related papers: Higher order spectra from an initially anisotropic…
We study curvature perturbations in the anisotropic inflationary model with a complex scalar field charged under a $U(1)$ gauge field in Bianchi I universe. Due to Abelian Higgs mechanism, the gauge field receives an additional longitudinal…
We investigate the possible effect of cosmological-constant type dark energy during the inflation period of the early universe. This is accommodated by a new dispersion relation in de Sitter space. The modified inflation model of a…
One of the fundamental objectives of contemporary cosmology is to understand the physics of the inflationary universe, owing to its observably verifiable predictions about the very early universe with an energy scale of $\sim 10^{16}$ GeV.…
We discuss the possibility that we could obtain some hints of the heavy physics during inflation by analyzing local features of the primordial bispectrum. A heavy scalar field could leave large signatures in the primordial spectra through…
During preheating after inflation, parametric resonance rapidly generates very large fluctuations of scalar fields. In models where the inflaton field $\phi$ oscillates in a double-well potential and interacts with another scalar field $X$,…
We investigate if the observed small and nearly scale-invariant primordial cosmic perturbation, i.e. the perturbation amplitude $P_\zeta\sim10^{-9}$ and the spectral index $n_s \simeq 0.965$, is typical in the landscape of vacua after…
It is well-known that the primordial scalar curvature and tensor perturbations, $\zeta$ and $\gamma_{ij}$, are conserved on super-horizon scales in minimal inflation models. However, their wave functional has a rapidly oscillating phase…
We present a consistent one-loop calculation for the inflationary tensor power spectrum in the presence of an excited spectator scalar field using the in-in formalism. We find that the super-horizon primordial power spectrum of the tensor…
It is well-known that first order phase transitions in the early universe can be a powerful source of observable stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds. Any such gravitational wave background must exhibit large-scale anisotropies at…
The Universe may harbor relics of the post-inflationary epoch in the form of a network of self-ordered scalar fields. Such fossils, while consistent with current cosmological data at trace levels, may leave too weak an imprint on the cosmic…
Non-linear interactions during inflation generate non-Gaussianities in the distribution of primordial curvature. In many theories, the physics is scale-invariant, such that the induced three-point function depends solely on a dimensionless…
We study the generation of primordial fluctuations in pure de Sitter inflation where the quantum scalar field dynamics are governed by polymer (not Schrodinger) quantization. This quantization scheme is related to, but distinct from, the…
We consider the evolution of scalar perturbations in a class of non-singular bouncing universes obtained with higher-order corrections to the low-energy bosonic string action. We show that previous studies have relied on a singular…
We investigate the possibility that a heavy scalar field, whose mass exceeds the Hubble scale during inflation, could leave non-negligible signatures in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropy power spectrum through the…
We use the auxiliary fields and (excited-) de Sitter solutions to study the standard power spectrum of primordial fluctuations of a scalar field in the early universe. The auxiliary fields are the negative norm solutions of the field…
Cosmological perturbations, originating in the quantum fluctuations of the fields that drive inflation, are observed to be nearly scale invariant at the largest scales. At smaller scales, however, perturbations are not severely constrained…
In this thesis, we discuss several instances in which non-linear behaviour affects cosmological evolution in the early Universe. We begin by reviewing the standard cosmological model and the tools used to understand it theoretically and to…
The scale--independence of the primordial curvature perturbation suggests that it comes from the vacuum fluctuation during inflation of a light scalar field. This field may be the inflaton, or a different `curvaton' field. The observation…
Attempts at building an unified description of the strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions usually involve several stages of spontaneous symmetry breaking. We consider the effects of such symmetry breaking during an era of primordial…
We compute the model-independent contributions to the primordial bispectrum and trispectrum in de Sitter space due to high-energy physics. We do this by coupling a light inflaton to an auxiliary heavy field, and then evaluating correlation…