Related papers: Solid Inflation
In this paper, inflationary cosmology is reviewed, paying particular attention to its observational signatures associated with large-scale density perturbations generated from quantum fluctuations. In the most general scalar-tensor theories…
We adopt a covariant formalism to derive exact evolution equations for nonlinear perturbations, in a universe dominated by two scalar fields. These scalar fields are characterized by non-canonical kinetic terms and an arbitrary field space…
In [1] a new cosmological model is proposed with no big bang singularity in the past, though past geodesically incomplete. This model starts with an inflationary era, follows with a stiff matter dominated period and evolves to accelerated…
We present an explicit formulation of cosmological perturbation theory for three-field models with a flat field space. By performing rotations to align one field with the direction of curvature perturbations and applying the same rotations…
The presence of multiple fields during inflation might seed a detectable amount of non-Gaussianity in the curvature perturbations, which in turn becomes observable in present data sets like the cosmic microwave background (CMB) or the large…
Cosmic inflation provides a mechanism for generating the early density perturbations that seeded the large-scale structures we see today. Primordial non-Gaussianity is among the most promising of few observational tests of physics at this…
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…
Inflationary models are usually based on dynamics of one or more scalar fields coupled to gravity. In this work we present a new class of inflationary models, gauge-flation or non-Abelian gauge field inflation, where slow-roll inflation is…
The observational constraints on the primordial power spectrum have tightened considerably with the release of the first year analysis of the WMAP observations, especially when combined with the results from other CMB experiments and galaxy…
It is usually supposed that inflation is of the slow-roll variety, and that the inflaton generates the primordial curvature perturbation. According to the curvaton hypothesis, inflation need not be slow-roll, and if it is the inflaton…
Recently multi-field inflation models that can produce large scalar fluctuations on small scales have drawn a lot of attention, primarily because they could lead to primordial black hole production and generation of large second-order…
A brief account is given of large-scale structure modelling based on the assumption that the initial perturbations arise from inflation. A recap is made of the implications of inflation for large-scale structure; under the widely applicable…
We propose a 3 + 1 dimensional model of gravity which results in inflation at early times, followed by radiation- and matter-dominated epochs and a subsequent acceleration at late times. Both the inflation and late time acceleration are…
During inflation explicit perturbative computations of quantum field theories which contain massless, non-conformal fields exhibit secular effects that grow as powers of the logarithm of the inflationary scale factor. Starobinskii's…
Models of cosmic inflation posit an early phase of accelerated expansion of the universe, driven by the dynamics of one or more scalar fields in curved spacetime. Though detailed assumptions about fields and couplings vary across models,…
We constrain cosmological models where the primordial perturbations have both an adiabatic and a (possibly correlated) cold dark matter (CDM) or baryon isocurvature component. We use both a phenomenological approach, where the primordial…
The space of inflationary models is vast, containing wide varieties of mechanisms, symmetries, and spectra of particles. Consequently, the space of observational signatures is similarly complex. Hence, it is natural to look for boundaries…
On compactification from higher dimensions, a single free massive scalar field gives rise to a set of effective four-dimensional scalar fields, each with a different mass. These can cooperate to drive a period of inflation known as assisted…
In the framework of scalar-tensor theories of gravity, we construct a new kind of cosmological model that conflates inflation and ekpyrosis. During a phase of conflation, the universe undergoes accelerated expansion, but with crucial…
The apparent alignment of the cosmic microwave background multipoles on large scales challenges the standard cosmological model. Scalar field inflation is isotropic and cannot account for the observed alignment. We explore the imprints, a…