Related papers: Do Mixed States save Effective Field Theory from B…
We revisit large field inflation models with modulations in light of the recent discovery of the primordial B-mode polarization by the BICEP2 experiment, which, when combined with the Planck + WP + highL data, gives a strong hint for…
Recent BICEP/Keck data on the cosmic microwave background, in combination with previous WMAP and Planck data, impose strong new constraints on the tilt in the scalar perturbation spectrum, $n_s$, as well as the tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r$.…
The methods of effective field theory are used to study generic theories of inflation with a single inflaton field. For scalar modes, the leading corrections to the ${\cal R}$ correlation function are found to be purely of the $k$-inflation…
Motivated by the recent observation of the B-mode signal in the cosmic microwave background by BICEP2, we stuty the Starobinsky-type inflation model in the framework of old-minimal supergravity, where the inflaton field in the original…
The Bunch-Davies state appears precisely thermal to a free-falling observer in de Sitter space. However, precise thermality is unphysical because it violates energy conservation. Instead, the true spectrum must take a certain different…
Recent result of BICEP2, revealing a larger value of tensor to scalar ratio (r), has opened up new investigations of the in ationary models to fit the experimental data. The experiment needs to reconfirm the results, specifically the…
A sizeable tensor-to-scalar ratio, such as recently claimed by BICEP2, would imply a scale of inflation at the typical scale of supersymmetric grand unification. This could be an accident, or strong support for supersymmetric theories.…
A detection of primordial B-modes has been heralded not only as a smoking gun for the existence of inflation, but also as a way to establish the scale at which inflation took place. In this paper we critically reinvestigate the connection…
The BICEP2 collaboration has recently reported a large tensor fluctuation in the cosmic microwave background, which suggests chaotic inflation models. In this letter, we reconsider the chaotic inflation model in the supergravity. We…
These lecture notes have been written for a short introductory course on the status of inflation after Planck and BICEP2, given at the Xth Modave School of Mathematical Physics. The first objective is to give an overview of the theory of…
If the recent measurement of B-mode polarization by BICEP2 is due to primordial gravitational waves, it implies that inflation was driven by energy densities at the GUT scale $M_{GUT} \sim 2\times 10^{16} GeV$. This favors single-field…
An inflationary gravitational wave background consistent with BICEP2 is difficult to reconcile with a simple power-law spectrum of primordial scalar perturbations. Tensor modes contribute to the temperature anisotropies at multipoles with…
Recent microwave polarization measurements from the BICEP2 experiment may reveal a long-sought signature of inflation. However, these new results appear inconsistent with the best-fit model from the Planck satellite. We suggest a…
In order to calculate the power spectrum generated during a stage of inflation, we have to specify the quantum state of the inflaton perturbations, which is conventionally assumed to be the Bunch-Davies vacuum. We argue that this choice is…
In this work we study models of anisotropic inflation with the generalized non-vacuum initial states for the inflaton field and the gauge field. The effects of non Bunch-Davies initial condition on the anisotropic power spectrum and…
Motivated by the reported discovery of inflationary gravity waves by the BICEP2 experiment, we propose an inflationary scenario in supergravity, based on the standard superpotential used in hybrid inflation. The new model yields a…
In view of the recent BICEP2 results [arXiv:1403.3985] which may be attributed to the observation of B-modes polarization of the CMB with tensor-to-scalar ratio $r=0.2_{-0.05}^{+0.07}$, we revisit M-flation model. Gauged M-flation is a…
In this article, we review how strong dynamics can be efficiently employed as a viable alternative to study the mechanism of cosmic inflation. We examine single-field inflation in which the inflaton emerges as a bound state stemming from…
Motivated by the idea that inflation occurs at the GUT symmetry breaking scale, in this paper we construct a new class of large field inflaton potentials where the inflaton starts with a power law potential; after initial period of relative…
Inflationary perturbations in multi-field theories can exhibit a transient tachyonic instability as a consequence of their non-trivial motion in the internal field space. When an effective single-field description is applicable, the…