Related papers: Quantifying the 'naturalness' of the curvaton mode…
In hybrid inflationary models, inflation ends by a sudden instability associated with a steep ridge in the potential. Here we argue that this feature can generate a large contribution to the curvature perturbation on observable scales. This…
This analysis aims at exploring what can be said about the growth rate of magnetized inhomogeneities under two concurrent hypotheses: a phase of quasi-de Sitter dynamics driven by a single inflaton field and the simultaneous presence of a…
We introduce a frame-covariant formalism for inflation of scalar-curvature theories by adopting a differential geometric approach which treats the scalar fields as coordinates living on a field-space manifold. This ensures that our…
Models of axion inflation are particularly interesting since they provide a natural justification for the flatness of the potential over a super-Planckian distance, namely the approximate shift-symmetry of the inflaton. In addition, most of…
The simplicity of the CMB data, so well described by single-field inflation, raises the question whether there might be an equally simple multi-field realization consistent with the observations. We explore the idea that an approximate…
Inflection-point inflation is an interesting possibility to realize a successful slow-roll inflation when inflation is driven by a single scalar field with its initial value below the Planck mass ($\phi_I \lesssim M_{Pl}$). In order for a…
We present an explicit cosmological model where inflation and dark energy both could arise from the dynamics of the same scalar field. We present our discussion in the framework where the inflaton field $\phi$ attains a nearly constant…
We re-examine the predictiveness of single-field inflationary models and discuss how an unknown UV completion can complicate determining inflationary model parameters from observations, even from precision measurements. Besides the usual…
Without demanding a specific form for the inflaton potential, we obtain an estimate of the contribution to the curvature perturbation generated during the linear era of the hybrid inflation waterfall. The spectrum of this contribution peaks…
We derive some new constraints on single-field inflation from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe 3-year data combined with the Sloan Luminous Red Galaxy survey. Our work differs from previous analyses by focusing only on the…
We investigate density perturbations in the chain inflation scenario, where the inflaton undergoes successive tunneling transitions along one field direction. First we show that when the bubble walls associated with such a phase transition…
The curvaton in an intermediate inflationary universe model is studied. This study has allowed us to find some interesting constraints on different parameters that appear in the model.
The possibility that the non-minimal coupling inflation could be eternal is investigated. We calculate the quantum fluctuation of the inflaton in a Hubble time and find that it has the same value as in the minimal case in the slow-roll…
We study the dynamics and perturbations during inflation and reheating in a multi-field model where a second scalar field $\chi$ is nonminimally coupled to the scalar curvature $(\frac12 \xi R\chi^2$). When $\xi$ is positive, the usual…
In the inflationary cosmology it occurs frequently that the inflaton field is trapped in a local, transient minimum with non-zero vacuum energy. The difficulty regarding the curvature perturbation produced during such a stage is that…
We study the Brownian motion of a field where there are boundaries in the inflationary field space. Both the field and the boundary undergo Brownian motions with the amplitudes of the noises determined by the Hubble expansion rate of the…
Inflation is part of the Standard Model of the Universe supported by CMB and large scale structure LSS datasets. This review presents new developments of inflation in three main chapters. (I): The effective theory of inflation a la…
Inflation is nowadays a well-established paradigm consistent with all the observations. The precise nature of the inflaton is however unknown and its role could be played by any candidate able to imitate a scalar condensate in the slow-roll…
A short inflationary phase may not erase all traces of the primordial universe. Associated observables include both spatial curvature and "anomalies" in the microwave background or large scale structure. The present curvature $\Omega_{K,0}$…
The inflaton field responsible for inflation may not be a canonical fundamental scalar. It is possible that the inflaton is a composite of fermions or it may have a decay width. In these cases the standard procedure for calculating the…