Related papers: Origin of Structure: Primordial Bispectrum without…
We calculate the bispectrum of primordial curvature perturbations, \zeta, generated during "open inflation." Inflation occurs inside a bubble nucleated via quantum tunneling from the background false vacuum state. Our universe lives inside…
We examine cosmological perturbations in a dynamical theory of inflation in which an Abelian gauge field couples directly to the inflaton, breaking conformal invariance. When the coupling between the gauge field and the inflaton takes a…
Observations of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe suggest the possibility of oscillations in the primordial density perturbation. Such deviations from the usually assumed scale-free…
All cosmological observations to date are consistent with adiabatic, Gaussian and nearly scale invariant initial conditions. These findings provide strong evidence for a particular symmetry breaking pattern in the very early universe (with…
We investigate the possibility that the inflationary period in the early universe was preceded by a primordial stage of strong anisotropy. In particular we focus on the simplest model of this kind, where the spacetime is described by a…
With the recent measurements of temperature and polarization anisotropies in the microwave background by WMAP, we have entered a new era of precision cosmology, with the cosmological parameters of a Standard Cosmological Model determined to…
Quantum diffusion describes the inflow of vacuum quantum fluctuations as they get amplified by gravitational instability, and stretched to large distances during inflation. In this picture, the dynamics of the universe's expansion becomes…
Supersolid inflation is a class of inflationary theories that simultaneously breaks time and space reparameterization invariance during inflation, with distinctive features for the dynamics of cosmological fluctuations. We investigate…
We develop a cosmological model where primordial inflation is driven by a 'solid', defined as a system of three derivatively coupled scalar fields obeying certain symmetries and spontaneously breaking a certain subgroup of these. The…
Measurements of CMB anisotropy and, more recently, polarization have played a very important role in cosmology. Besides precise determination of various parameters of the `standard' cosmological model, observations have also established…
Cosmological perturbations, originating in the quantum fluctuations of the fields that drive inflation, are observed to be nearly scale invariant at the largest scales. At smaller scales, however, perturbations are not severely constrained…
The pre-big bang scenario describes the evolution of the Universe from an initial state approaching the flat, cold, empty, string perturbative vacuum. The choice of such an initial state is suggested by the present state of our Universe if…
Inflation is the currently accepted paradigm for the beginnings of the Universe. To explain the observed almost scale invariant spectrum of density perturbations with only a slight spectral tilt, inflation must have been "slow roll", that…
We study the structure of multi-field inflation models where the primordial curvature perturbation is able to vigorously interact with an ultra-light isocurvature field -- a massless fluctuation orthogonal to the background inflationary…
Why is non-Gaussianity interesting? One of generic predictions from inflationary scenarios is that primordial fluctuations are exactly Gaussian in linear order; however, the non-linearity in the inflation will produce weak non-Gaussianity.…
Solid inflation is an effective field theory of inflation in which isotropy and homogeneity are accomplished via a specific combination of anisotropic sources (three scalar fields that individually break isotropy). This results in specific…
We suggest here a mechanism for the seeding of the primordial density fluctuations. We point out that a process like reheating at the end of inflation will inevitably generate perturbations, even on superhorizon scales, by the local…
If forthcoming measurements of cosmic photon polarization restrict the primordial tensor-to-scalar ratio to $r < 0.01$, small field inflation will be a principal candidate for the origin of the universe. Here we show that small multifield…
We show that inflationary cosmology may be used to test the statistical predictions of quantum theory at very short distances and at very early times. Hidden-variables theories, such as the pilot-wave theory of de Broglie and Bohm, allow…
Inflation is the leading paradigm for explaining the origin of primordial density perturbations and the observed temperature fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background. However many open questions remain, in particular whether one or…