Related papers: Planck Constraints on Monodromy Inflation
Multi-field models of inflation typically assume that interactions between particles can be treated perturbatively. Strongly-coupled models provide an intriguing alternative and may offer novel inflationary phenomenology. We study the…
The observational status of inflation after the Planck 2013 and 2015 results and the BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck joint analysis is discussed. These pedagogical lecture notes are intended to serve as a technical guide filling the gap…
Due to universality and attractor properties, $\alpha$-attractor quintessential inflation establishes direct relations between inflationary observables such as the scalar tilt $n_s$ and the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$, and late-time dark…
We present a simple effective field theory formulation of a general family of single field flux monodromy models for which strong coupling effects at large field values can flatten the potential and activate operators with higher powers of…
The power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background from both the {\it Planck} and {\it WMAP} data exhibits a slight dip for multipoles in the range of $l= 10-30$. We show that such a dip could be the result of the resonant creation of…
We study the primordial non-Gaussinity predicted from simple models of inflation with a linear potential and superimposed oscillations. This generic form of the potential is predicted by the axion monodromy inflation model, that has…
We present the first results based on Planck measurements of the CMB temperature and lensing-potential power spectra. The Planck spectra at high multipoles are extremely well described by the standard spatially-flat six-parameter LCDM…
While the observed nearly scale-invariant initial power spectrum is regarded as one of the favorable evidence of the standard inflationary cosmology, precision observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies also suggest…
The angular power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropy observed by WMAP has an anomalous dip at l~20 and bump at l~40. One explanation for this structure is the presence of features in the primordial curvature…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization anisotropies, as observed by independent astronomical missions such as WMAP, Planck, and most recently the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the South Pole Telescope have…
We present a detailed analysis of present and future Cosmic Microwave Background constraints of the value of the fine-structure constant, $\alpha$. We carry out a more detailed analysis of the WMAP first-year data, deriving state-of-the-art…
We investigate the impact of a hypothesized delayed initiation of inflation, characterized by a cutoff k_min to the primordial power spectrum in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This cutoff affects both the scalar and tensor spectra,…
We investigate inflationary scenarios driven by a class of potentials which are similar in form to those that arise in certain minimal supersymmetric extensions of the standard model. We find that these potentials allow a brief period of…
Measuring spectral distortions (SDs) of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) will provide new constraints on previously unexplored scales of the primordial power spectrum, allowing us to extend the probed parameter space by several orders…
Theories where the Planck scale is dynamically generated from dimensionless interactions provide predictive inflationary potentials and super-Planckian field variations. We first study the minimal single-field realisation in the low-energy…
We extract parameters relevant for distinguishing among single-field inflation models from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) data set, and from a combination of the WMAP data and seven other Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)…
The two fundamental assumptions of the standard cosmological model - that the initial fluctuations are statistically isotropic and Gaussian - are rigorously tested using maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy from the…
Recent second-order perturbation computations have provided an accurate prediction for the primordial gravitational potential $\Phi(x)$ in scenarios in which cosmological perturbations are generated either during or after inflation. This…
We present cosmological parameter constraints based on the final nine-year WMAP data, in conjunction with additional cosmological data sets. The WMAP data alone, and in combination, continue to be remarkably well fit by a six-parameter LCDM…
The basic cosmological parameters and the primordial power spectrum together completely specify predictions for the cosmic microwave background radiation anisotropy and large scale structure. Here we show how we can strongly constrain both…