Related papers: Cosmological constraints on the curvaton web param…
We investigate the amplification of curvature perturbations in a two-field inflation model featuring a Gaussian potential bump. When the inflaton encounters a potential bump along the inflationary trajectory, its rolling speed is generally…
We study the evolution of the curvature perturbation on the super-horizon scales starting from the inflationary epoch until there remains only a single dynamical degree of freedom, presureless matter, in the universe. We consider the cosmic…
We present new single field inflationary scenarios that produce the critical abundance of primordial black holes as dark matter reconstructing the inflaton potential from an input power spectrum. The method is exact in the slow roll…
We consider chaotic inflation models with a pseudo-scalar field containing the general couplings to the four-form flux. The four-form mixing with the pseudo-scalar field induces a quadratic potential for inflaton while the coexisting…
We show how observations of the perturbation spectra produced during inflation may be used to constrain the parameters of general scalar-tensor theories of gravity, which include both an inflaton and dilaton field. An interesting feature of…
Inflation models can have an early phase of inflation where the evolution of the inflaton is driven by quantum fluctuations before entering the phase driven by the slope of the scalar field potential. For a Coleman-Weinberg potential this…
We revisit the scenario of primordial black hole (PBH) formation from large curvature perturbations generated during the waterfall phase transition in hybrid inflation models. In a minimal setup considered in the literature, the mass and…
We investigate the possibility that the Universe may inflate due to moduli fields, corresponding to flat directions of supersymmetry, lifted by supergravity corrections. Using a hybrid-type potential we obtain a two-stage inflationary…
In inflationary cosmological models driven by an inflaton field the origin of the primordial inhomogeneities which are responsible for large scale structure formation are the quantum fluctuations of the inflaton field. These are usually…
The usual description of inflationary fluctuations uses the framework of quantum field theory (QFT) in curved spacetime, in which quantum fluctuations are superimposed on a classical background spacetime. Even for large fluctuations, such…
Measurements of CMB temperature fluctuations by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) indicate that the fluctuation amplitude in one half of the sky differs from the amplitude in the other half. We show that such an asymmetry…
We consider the possible decay of the inflaton into curvaton particles during reheating and analyse its effect on curvaton scenarios. Typical decay curvatons are initially relativistic then become non-relativistic, changing the background…
After introducing gauge-invariant cosmological perturbation theory we give an improved set of governing equations for multiple fluids including energy transfer. Having defined adiabatic and entropic perturbations we derive the…
The generation of large curvature perturbations associated with the production of primordial black holes is studied in the context of a Higgs inflaton. To enable this amplification, we consider an inflationary model in which the tree-level…
In the curvaton scenario, primordial curvature perturbations are produced by a second field that is sub-dominant during inflation. Depending on how the curvaton decays [possibly producing baryon number, lepton number, or cold dark matter…
Massive fields during inflation provide an interesting opportunity to test new physics at very high energy scales. Meanwhile in fundamental realizations, the inflationary field space typically has a curved geometry, which may leave…
Whereas preheating after chaotic and hybrid inflation models has been abundantly studied in the literature, preheating in small field inflation models, where the curvature of the inflaton potential is negative during inflation, remains less…
We analyze the simplest possible realization of the curvaton scenario, where a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of adiabatic perturbations is generated by conversion of an isocurvature perturbation generated during inflation, rather than the…
In an inflationary cosmology, the observed primoridal density perturbation could come from the quantum fluctuations of another light 'curvaton' field, rather than the inflaton. In this case, it is essential that the curvaton decays,…
This thesis is dedicated to studying cosmological inflation, which is a period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe that is required to explain the observed anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. Inflation, when…