Related papers: Visible sector inflation and the right thermal his…
If cosmic inflation was driven by an electrically neutral scalar field stable on cosmological time scales, the field necessarily constitutes all or part of dark matter (DM). We study this possibility in a scenario where the inflaton field…
In this talk we will discuss how inflation can be embedded within a minimal extension of the Standard Model where the inflaton carries the Standard Model charges. There is no need of an ad-hoc scalar field to be introduced in order to…
There is strong evidence from cosmological data that the universe underwent an epoch of superluminal expansion called inflation. A satisfactory embedding of inflation in fundamental physics has been an outstanding problem at the interface…
In this paper we will analyze generic predictions of an inflection-point model of inflation with Hubble-induced corrections and study them in light of the Planck data. Typically inflection-point models of inflation can be embedded within…
Curvaton is an effectively massless field whose energy density during inflation is negligible but which later becomes dominant. This is a novel mechanism to generate the scale invariant perturbations. I discuss the possibility that the…
We propose a new mechanism to generate density perturbations in inflationary models. Spatial fluctuations in the decay rate of the inflaton field to ordinary matter lead to fluctuations in the reheating temperature. We argue that in most…
We consider a scenario where the inflaton decays to a hidden sector thermally decoupled from the visible Standard Model sector. A tiny portal coupling between the hidden and the visible sectors later heats the visible sector so that the…
The flat directions LLe and udd within the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model provide all the necessary ingredients for a successful inflation with the right amplitude of the scalar density perturbations, negligible gravity waves and the…
We consider scenarios where the inflaton field decays dominantly to a hidden dark matter (DM) sector. By studying the typical behavior of the Standard Model (SM) Higgs field during inflation, we derive a relation between the primordial…
Most models of inflation have small parameters, either to guarantee sufficient inflation or the correct magnitude of the density perturbations. In this paper we show that, in supersymmetric theories with weak scale supersymmetry breaking,…
We point out some of the outstanding challenges for embedding inflationary cosmology within string theory studying the process of reheating for models where the inflaton is a closed string mode parameterising the size of an internal cycle…
We discuss a minimal extension of the Standard Model (SM) where a single real scalar field serves as both inflaton and dark matter. The corresponding Lagrangian contains the renormalizable interactions of the inflaton field. Quantum effects…
Most models of inflation have small parameters, either to guarantee sufficient inflation or the correct magnitude of the density perturbations. In this paper we show that, in supersymmetric theories with weak scale supersymmetry breaking,…
We propose that the inflaton is coupled to ordinary matter only gravitationally and that it decays into a completely hidden sector. In this scenario both baryonic and dark matter originate from the decay of a flat direction of the minimal…
We review the main aspects of the warm inflation scenario, focusing on the inflationary dynamics and the predictions related to the primordial spectrum of perturbations, to be compared with the recent cosmological observations. We study in…
In this talk we will discuss how inflation can be embedded within a minimal extension of the Standard Model where the inflaton carries the Standard Model charges. There is no need of an ad-hoc scalar field to be introduced in order to…
We review the particle theory origin of inflation and curvaton mechanisms for generating large scale structures and the observed temperature anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Since inflaton or curvaton energy…
Inflation, as currently understood, requires the presence of fields with very flat potentials. Supersymmetric models in which supersymmetry breaking is communicated by supergravity naturally yield such fields, but the scales are typically…
We present a model where the inflaton can naturally account for all the dark matter in the Universe within the warm inflation paradigm. In particular, we show that the symmetries of the Warm Little Inflaton scenario (i) avoid large thermal…
We present a scenario of vector dark matter production from symmetry breaking at the end of inflation. In this model, the accumulated energy density associated with the quantum fluctuations of the dark photon accounts for the present energy…