Related papers: Inflationary schism after Planck2013
We review locked inflation and we critically address phenomenological and consistency issues thathave appeared in the literature. A natural window of opportunity is found for the original scenario.Moreover, a simple way to enlarge the…
We propose a model for cosmic inflation which is based on an effective description of strongly interacting, nonsupersymmetric matter within the framework of dynamical Abelian projection and centerization. The underlying gauge symmetry is…
We show how the quantum-to-classical transition of the cosmological fluctuations produced during an inflationary stage can be described using the consistent histories approach. We identify the corresponding histories in the limit of…
We construct a hybrid-inflation model where the inflaton potential is generated radiatively, as gauge symmetries guarantee it to be accidentally flat at tree level. The model can be regarded as a small-field version of Natural Inflation,…
It is now understood that inflation dynamics comes in two forms, isentropic or cold inflation and nonisentropic or warm inflation. In the former, inflation occurs without radiation production, whereas in the latter both radiation production…
We present an inflationary model that is geodesically complete and does not suffer from the transplanckian problem. In most inflationary models, massless (conformal) scalar field fluctuations in a deSitter background gives rise to a…
Because the inflationary mechanism is extremely sensitive to UV-physics, the construction of theoretically robust models of inflation provides a unique window on Planck-scale physics. We review efforts to use an axion with a shift symmetry…
In the framework of classical scale invariance, we consider quadratic gravity in the Palatini formalism and investigate the inflationary predictions of the theory. Our model corresponds to a two-field scalar-tensor theory, that involves the…
The large hierarchy between the Planck scale and the weak scale can be explained by the dynamical breaking of supersymmetry in strongly coupled gauge theories. Similarly, the hierarchy between the Planck scale and the energy scale of…
The probability of there being sufficient inflation to solve the fine-tuning associated with the horizon and flatness problems has recently been shown to be exponentially small, within the context of classical general relativity. Here this…
The theory of cosmological perturbations has become a cornerstone of modern quantitative cosmology since it is the framework which provides the link between the models of the very early Universe such as the inflationary Universe scenario…
We propose a new framework for multi-field inflation in which a nearly constant potential energy is maintained during inflation before decreasing rapidly, in a manner analogous to a classical top spinning upright for a long time before…
We derive a general criterion that defines all single-field models leading to Starobinsky-like inflation and to universal predictions for the spectral index and tensor-to-scalar ratio, which are in agreement with Planck data. Out of all the…
A new family of inflation models is introduced and studied. The models are characterised by a scalar potential which, far from the origin, approaches an inflationary plateau in a power-law manner, while near the origin becomes monomial, as…
We propose a model for cosmic inflation which is based on an effective description of strongly interacting, nonsupersymmetric matter within the framework of dynamical abelian projection and centerization. The underlying gauge symmetry is…
The newly released Planck CMB data place tight constraints on slow-roll inflationary models. Some of commonly discussed inflationary potentials are disfavored due mainly to the large tensor-to-scalar ratio. In this paper we show that these…
In this paper we consider inflation as a probe of new physics near the string or Planck scale. We discuss how new physics can be captured by the choice of vacuum, and how this leads to modifications of the primordial spectrum as well as the…
We construct non-linear inflaton potential energy densities that describe not-necessarily very-slowly-rolling closed and open inflation models, and compute tilted primordial spatial inhomogeneity power spectra that follow from quantum…
Cosmic inflation is arguably the most favoured paradigm of the very early Universe. It postulates an early phase of fast, nearly exponential, and accelerated expansion. Inflationary models are capable of explaining the overall flatness and…
We show that simple strongly coupled supersymmetric gauge theories with quantum moduli spaces can naturally lead to hybrid inflation. These theories contain no input dimensionful or small parameters. The effective superpotential is linear…