Related papers: Modified Lyth bound and implications of BICEP2 res…
We examine observational constraints on single-field inflation in which the inflaton is a composite field stemming from a four-dimensional strongly interacting field theory. We confront the predictions with the Planck and very recent BICEP2…
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…
Last year we argued that if slow-roll inflation followed the decay of a false vacuum in a large landscape, the steepening of the scalar potential between the inflationary plateau and the barrier generically leads to a potentially observable…
A corpuscular quantum description of inflation shows that there is no fundamental problem with trans-Planckian excursions of the inflaton field up to about 100 Planck masses, with the upper bound coming from the corpuscular quantum effects.…
In this paper we provide a new expression for the variation of the inflaton field $\Delta\phi$ during the horizon crossing epoch in the context of single field slow roll inflationary models. Such an expression represents a generalization of…
In single field slow roll inflation models the height and slope of the potential are to satisfy certain conditions, to match with observations. This in turn translates into bounds on the number of e-foldings and the excursion of the scalar…
We explore the consequences of a detection of primordial tensor fluctuations for general single-field models of inflation. Using the effective theory of inflation, we propose a generalization of the Lyth bound. Our bound applies to all…
We place observational constraints on slow-variation single-field inflationary models by carrying out the cosmological Monte Carlo simulation with the recent data of Planck combined with the WMAP large-angle polarization, baryon acoustic…
We construct a family of simple single-field inflation models consistent with Planck / BICEP Keck bounds which have a parametrically small tensor amplitude and no running of the scalar spectral index. The construction consists of a…
We study to what extent the spectral index $n_s$ and the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ determine the field excursion $\Delta\phi$ during inflation. We analyse the possible degeneracy of $\Delta \phi$ by comparing three broad classes of…
Recently BICEP2 found that the vanishing of the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ is excluded at $7\sigma$ level, and its most likely value is $r=0.2^{+0.07}_{-0.05}$ at $1 \sigma$ level. This immediately causes a tension with the Planck…
At the beginning of inflation there could be extra dynamical scalar fields that will soon disappear (become static) before the end of inflation. In the light of multi-field inflation, those extra degrees of freedom may alter the…
We use the PLANCK 2018 and the WMAP data to constraint inflation models driven by a scalar field $\phi$ in the presence of the non-minimal scalar-curvature mixing term $\frac{1}{2}\xi R \phi^2$. We consider four distinct scalar field…
The recent BICEP2 B-mode polarization determination of an inflationary tensor-scalar ratio $r=0.2^{+0.07}_{-0.05}$ is in tension with simple scale-free models of inflation due to a lack of a corresponding low multipole excess in the…
In light of BICEP2, we reexamine single field inflationary models in which the inflaton is a composite state stemming from various four-dimensional strongly coupled theories. We study in the Einstein frame a set of cosmological parameters,…
Slow-roll inflation is studied as an effective field theory.We find as consistent form of the inflaton potential V(phi)=N M^4 w(phi/[sqrt{N}M_P]) where phi is the inflaton field, M the inflation energy scale, M_P the Planck mass, and N~50…
By incorporating both the tensor-to-scalar ratio and the measured value of the spectral index, we set a bound on solo small field inflation of $\Delta \phi / m_{Pl} \geq 1.00 \sqrt{r/0.1}$. Unlike previous bounds which require monotonic…
We study how both the swampland distance conjecture and the Lyth bound affect the parameter space of multi-field models of inflation. A generic feature of multi-field inflation is that the geodesic distance…
We study slow-roll inflation with a Gauss-Bonnet term that is coupled to an inflaton field nonminimally. We investigate the inflationary solutions for a specific type of the nonminimal coupling to the Gauss-Bonnet term and inflaton…
We examine the impact of a non-minimal coupling of the inflaton to the Ricci scalar, $\frac12 \xi R\phi^2$, on the inflationary predictions. Such a non-minimal coupling is expected to be present in the inflaton Lagrangian on fairly general…