Related papers: Towards Universal Axion Inflation and Reheating in…
The D3/D7 inflation is studied in the framework of Type 0B string theory. Due to the presence of the closed string tachyon, the constant gauge field flux on the transverse worldvolume of D7-brane is almost arbitrary in having an attractive…
Extensions of the Standard Model and general relativity featuring a UV fixed point can leave observable implications at accessible energies. Although mass parameters such as the Planck scale can appear through dimensional transmutation, all…
This thesis is dedicated to the study of inflationary scenarios based on string theory. Inflation is a brief period of accelerated expansion in the very early Universe which gives natural explanations for problems of the Standard Big Bang…
We propose an extension of natural inflation, where the inflaton potential is a general periodic function. Specifically, we study elliptic inflation where the inflaton potential is given by Jacobi elliptic functions, Jacobi theta functions…
The recent BICEP2 detection of, what is claimed to be primordial $B$-modes, opens up the possibility of constraining not only the energy scale of inflation but also the detailed acceleration history that occurred during inflation. In turn…
We study the possibility of extended inflation in the effective theory of gravity from strings compactified to four dimensions and find that it strongly depends on the mechanism of supersymmetry breaking. We consider a general class of…
The large tensor spectrum recently observed by the BICEP2 Collaboration requires a super-Planckian field variation of the inflaton in the single-field inflationary scenario. The required slow-roll parameter \epsilon \approx 0.01 would…
A generic feature of the known string inflationary models is that the same physics that makes the inflaton lighter than the Hubble scale during inflation often also makes other scalars this light. These scalars can acquire isocurvature…
In the ``natural inflation'' model, the inflaton potential is periodic. We show that Planck scale physics may induce corrections to the inflaton potential, which is also periodic with a greater frequency. Such high frequency corrections…
We propose that inflation and dark matter have a common origin, connected to the neutrino mass generation scheme. As a model we consider spontaneous breaking of global lepton number within the seesaw mechanism. We show that it provides an…
We present a new model of string inflation driven by a blow-up K\"ahler modulus of type IIb compactifications with a potential generated by string loops. Slow-roll is naturally realized thanks to the fact that the blow-up mode is a…
Within the framework of a novel functional method on the world-sheet of the string, we discuss simple but re-summed (in the Regge slope) inflationary scenarios in the context of closed Bosonic strings, living in four target-space…
The claimed detection of the BICEP2 experiment on the primordial B-mode of cosmic microwave background polarization suggests that cosmic inflation possibly takes place at the energy around the grand unified theory scale given a constraint…
Axion monodromy models can always be described in terms of an axion coupled to 3-form gauge fields with non-canonical kinetic terms. The presence of the saxions parametrising the kinetic metrics of the 3-form fields leads to backreaction…
The BICEP2 observation of a large tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r = 0.20^{+0.07}_{-0.05}$, implies that the inflaton $\phi$ in single-field inflation models must satisfy $\phi \sim 10M_{Pl}$ in order to produce sufficient inflation. This is a…
We investigate the cosmological inflation in a class of supergravity models that are generalizations of non-supersymmetric $R^2$ models. Although such models have been extensively studied recently, especially after the launch of the PLANCK…
We develop a numerical statistical method to study linear cosmological fluctuations in inflationary scenarios with multiple fields, and apply it to an ensemble of six-field inflection point models in string theory. The latter are concrete…
In this paper we explored in detail a phenomenological model of modified single field natural inflation in light of recent cosmological experiments, BICEP2. Our main goal is to construct an inflationary model which not only predicts the…
Recent developments on large scale string moduli stabilization via non-geometric fluxes are reviewed. In the framework of type IIB orientifolds on fluxed Calabi-Yau manifolds, the existence of so-called flux-scaling minima provides a good…
The measurement of a large tensor-to-scalar ratio by the BICEP2 experiment, r = 0.20 (-0.05)(+0.07), severely restricts the landscape of viable inflationary models and shifts attention once more towards models featuring large inflaton field…