Related papers: Non-Gaussian bubbles in the sky
Inflation provides a natural mechanism to account for the origin of cosmic structures. The generation of primordial inhomogeneities during inflation can be understood via the spontaneous creation of quanta from the vacuum. We show that when…
We consider the possibility that the primordial curvature perturbation was generated through the curvaton mechanism from a scalar field with an electric charge, or precisely the Standard Model U(1) weak hypercharge. This links the dynamics…
We consider contributions to non-Gaussianity of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) from remnants of post-inflationary phase transitions in the very early universe. Such signatures can optimistically be used to discover evidence of new…
Several conserved and/or gauge invariant quantities described as the second-order curvature perturbation have been given in the literature. We revisit various scenarios for the generation of second-order non-gaussianity in the primordial…
In the curvaton scenario, the curvature perturbation is generated after inflation at the curvaton decay, which may have a prominent non-Gaussian effect. For a model with a non-trivial kinetic term, an enhanced curvature perturbation on a…
In this review, we discuss how non-Gaussianity of cosmological perturbations arises from inflation. After introducing the in-in formalism to calculate the $n$-point correlation function of quantum fields, we present the computation of the…
We construct explicit models of multi-field inflation in which the primordial metric fluctuations do not necessarily obey Gaussian statistics. These models are realizations of mechanisms in which non-Gaussianity is first generated by a…
The particle production process is reviewed, through which cosmic inflation can produce a scale invariant superhorizon spectrum of perturbations of suitable fields starting from their quantum fluctuations. Afterwards, in the context of the…
In this thesis, we show how the structure of the landscape potential of the primordial Universe may be probed through the primordial density perturbations responsible for the origin of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies and the…
If the entire post-inflationary patch is large compared to our Hubble volume even a small level of non-Gaussianity can cause statistics of the primordial curvature field in our Hubble volume to be biased by mode-coupling. We explicitly…
Following the discovery of the CMB, the hot big-bang model has become the standard cosmological model. In this theory, small primordial fluctuations are subsequently amplified by gravity to form the large-scale structure seen today.…
The leading candidate for the very early universe is described by a period of rapid expansion known as inflation. While the standard paradigm invokes a single slow-rolling field, many different models may be constructed which fit the…
We investigate density perturbations sourced by a curvaton with a generic energy potential. The key feature of a curvaton potential which deviates from a quadratic is that the curvaton experiences a non-uniform onset of its oscillation.…
Primordial non-Gaussianity is a potentially powerful discriminant of the physical mechanisms that generated the cosmological fluctuations observed today. Any detection of significant non-Gaussianity would thus have profound implications for…
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…
The curvaton scenario for the generation of the cosmological curvature perturbation on large scales represents an alternative to the standard slow-roll scenario of inflation in which the observed density perturbations are due to…
We investigate large-scale inhomogeneity of dark energy in the bubble nucleation scenario of the universe. In this scenario, the present universe was created by a bubble nucleation due to quantum tunneling from a metastable ancestor vacuum,…
The cosmological curvature perturbation may be generated when some `curvaton' field, different from the inflaton, oscillates in a background of unperturbed radiation. In its simplest form the curvaton paradigm requires the Hubble parameter…
In a variety of inflation models the motion of the inflaton may trigger the production of some non-inflaton particles during inflation, for example via parametric resonance or a phase transition. Particle production during inflation leads…
Quantum diffusion describes the inflow of vacuum quantum fluctuations as they get amplified by gravitational instability, and stretched to large distances during inflation. In this picture, the dynamics of the universe's expansion becomes…