Related papers: Unwinding Inflation
In double-field inflation, which exploits two scalar fields, one of the fields rolls slowly during inflation whereas the other field is trapped in a meta-stable vacuum. The nucleation rate from the false vacuum to the true one becomes…
It is already understood that the increasing observational evidence for an open Universe may be reconciled with inflation if our horizon is contained inside one single huge bubble nucleated during the inflationary phase transition. In the…
Many models of high energy physics possess metastable vacua. It is conceivable that the universe can get trapped in such a false vacuum, irrespective of its origin and prior history, at an earlier stage during its evolution. The ensuing…
We investigate the embedding of brane inflation into stable compactifications of string theory. At first sight a warped compactification geometry seems to produce a naturally flat inflaton potential, evading one well-known difficulty of…
Quintessential inflation--in which a single scalar field plays the role of the inflaton and quintessence--from a sum of exponentials potential V = A (exp{5 phi}+exp{sqrt{2} phi}) or V = A (exp{5 phi}+exp{phi}) or a cosh potential V = 2A…
We study the observable implications of an incomplete first order phase transition during inflation. In such a phase transition, the nucleated bubbles do not percolate and instead are continuously produced until the onset of reheating. The…
We investigate a non-singular cosmological scenario in which uniform-rate inflation is realised on an anisotropic Shtanov-Sahni braneworld. The model naturally resolves the initial singularity resulting in an infinite number of smooth…
In certain implementations of the brane inflationary paradigm, the exit from inflation occurs when the branes annihilate through tachyon condensation. We investigate various cosmological effects produced by this tachyonic era. We find that…
Inflationary cosmology is developed in the second Randall-Sundrum braneworld scenario, where the accelerated expansion arises through potentials that are too steep to drive inflation in conventional cosmology. A relationship between the…
Inflation may occur while rolling into the metastable supersymmetry-breaking vacuum of massive supersymmetric QCD. We explore the range of parameters in which slow-roll inflation and long-lived metastable supersymmetry breaking may be…
In the context of (4+d)-dimensional general relativity, we propose an inflationary scenario wherein 3 spatial dimensions grow large, while d extra dimensions remain small. Our model requires that a self-interacting d-form acquire a vacuum…
We construct a string-inspired nonsingular cosmological scenario in which an inflaton field is driven up the potential before the graceful exit by employing a low-energy string effective action with an orbifold compactification. This sets…
We propose a mechanism for solving the horizon and entropy problems of standard cosmology which does not make use of cosmological inflation. Crucial ingredients of our scenario are brane gases, extra dimensions, and a confining potential…
A regular bouncing universe is obtained in the context of a dilaton-gravity brane world scenario. The scale factor starts in a contracting inflationary phase both in the Einstein and in the string frame, it then undergoes a bounce (due to…
We present an interpretation of the physics of space-times undergoing eternal inflation by repeated nucleation of bubbles. In many cases the physics can be interpreted in terms of the quantum mechanics of a system with a finite number of…
A gravity-driven inflation is shown to arise from a simple higher dimensional universe. In vacuum, the shear of $n>1$ contracting dimensions is able to inflate the remaining three spatial dimensions. Said another way, the expansion of the…
We discuss the evolution of gravitational waves in a brane-world cosmology embedded in five-dimensional anti-de Sitter spacetime. We show that during slow-roll inflation, modelled as a period of quasi-de Sitter expansion on the brane, there…
In the model of Chain Inflation, a sequential chain of coupled scalar fields drives inflation. We consider a multidimensional potential with a large number of bowls, or local minima, separated by energy barriers: inflation takes place as…
We analyse the cosmological implications of brane-antibrane systems in string-theoretic orbifold and orientifold models. In a class of realistic models, consistency conditions require branes and antibranes to be stuck at different fixed…
We consider a 4+N dimensional Einstein gravity coupled to a non-linear sigma model. This theory admits a solution in which the N extra dimensions contract exponentially while the ordinary space expand exponentially. Physically, the…