Related papers: The trouble with asymptotically safe inflation
This review article aims at presenting the theory of inflation. We first describe the background spacetime behavior during the slow-roll phase and analyze how inflation ends and the Universe reheats. Then, we present the theory of…
We study the cosmology of a toy modified theory of gravity in which gravity shuts off at short distances, as in the fat graviton scenario of Sundrum. In the weak-field limit, the theory is perturbatively local, ghost-free and unitary,…
We consider the stochastic gravitational wave background induced by arbitrary source fields that are amplified during cosmological inflation. The associated tensor spectral index is shown to be given, under minimal assumptions, by a simple…
A pseudoscalar inflaton $\varphi$, coupled to the topological charge density $F\tilde{F}$ of a non-Abelian sector, can decay to gauge bosons ($\varphi\to g g $), which may thermalize rapidly. The friction felt by $\varphi$ is then increased…
In the context of the open inflationary universe, we calculate the amplitude of quantum fluctuations which deform the bubble shape. These give rise to scalar field fluctuations in the open Friedman-Robertson-Walker universe which is…
In bounce inflation scenario, the inflation is singularity-free, while the advantages of inflation are reserved. We analytically calculate the power spectrum of its primordial gravitational waves (GWs), and show a universal result including…
We investigate whether the eternal chaotic inflation can be achieved when the weak gravity conjecture is taken into account. We show that even the assisted chaotic inflation with potential $\lambda\phi^4$ or $m^2\phi^2$ can not be eternal.…
Gauge-flation is a recently proposed model in which inflation is driven solely by a non-Abelian gauge field thanks to a specific higher order derivative operator. The nature of the operator is such that it does not introduce ghosts. We…
We show that in theories with a nontrivial kinetic term the contribution of the gravitational waves to the CMB fluctuations can be substantially larger than that is naively expected in simple inflationary models. This increase of the…
We explore the phenomenology of scalar fields coupled to asymptotically safe quantum gravity, in light of their potential significance for dark matter, for the inflaton as well as dynamical dark energy, and in the Higgs sector in and beyond…
An important prediction of inflation is the production of a primordial stochastic gravitational wave background. Observing this background is challenging due to the weakness of the signal and the simultaneous presence of an astrophysical…
Primordial gravitational waves generated during inflation lead to the B-mode polarization in the cosmic microwave background and a stochastic gravitational wave background in the Universe. We will explore the current constraint on the tilt…
Recent cosmological observations indicate the existence of extra light species, i.e., dark radiation. In this paper we show that signatures of the dark radiation are imprinted in the spectrum of inflationary gravitational waves. If the dark…
We reevaluate the predictions of inflation regarding primordial gravity waves, which should appear as B-modes in the CMB, in light of the fact that the standard inflationary paradigm is unable to account for the transition from an initially…
We consider reheating in a class of asymptotically safe quantum field theories recently studied in \cite{Litim:2014uca, Litim:2015iea}. These theories allow for an inflationary phase in the very early universe. Inflation ends with a period…
In models of natural inflation, the inflaton is an axion-like particle. Unfortunately, axion potentials in UV-complete theories appear to be too steep to drive inflation. We show that, even for a steep potential, natural inflation can occur…
How well can we constrain the initial quantum state of metric perturbations sourced during inflation? We exhibit an interesting new class of quantum states that entangle the scalar metric perturbations {\zeta} with other fields such as…
We reconsider the problems of cosmological inflation in effective supergravity theories. A singlet field in a hidden sector is demonstrated to yield an acceptable inflationary potential, without fine tuning. In the simplest such model, the…
We estimate the stochastic gravitational wave spectrum emitted from a network of cosmic strings in which the latter are effectively stable against breaking by monopole pair creation. The monopoles are produced at a higher scale from an…
In order to assess the role of ghosts in cosmology, we study the evolution of linear cosmological perturbations during inflation when a Weyl term is added to the action. Our main result is that vector perturbations can no longer be ignored…