Related papers: Modified Lyth bound and implications of BICEP2 res…
The observation of the B-mode in the cosmic microwave background radiation combined with the so-called Lyth bound suggests the trans-Planckian variation of the inflaton field during inflation. Such a large variation generates concerns over…
We explore some issues in slow roll inflation in situations where field excursions are small compared to $M_p$. We argue that for small field inflation, minimizing fine tuning requires low energy supersymmetry and a tightly constrained…
We study the scenario of inflection point inflation where a flat direction of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) is identified with the inflaton. Specifically, we consider in full generality the cases where a MSSM flat…
It is well known that the non-minimal coupling $\xi\phi^2R$ between the inflaton and the Ricci scalar affects predictions of single field inflation models. In particular, the $\lambda\phi^4$ quartic inflation potential with…
We reconsider non-minimal \lambda \phi^4 chaotic inflation which includes the gravitational coupling term \xi \mathcal{R} \phi^2, where \phi denotes a gauge singlet inflaton field and \mathcal{R} is the Ricci scalar. For \xi >> 1 we…
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…
We consider the most minimal scale invariant extension of the standard model that allows for successful radiative electroweak symmetry breaking and inflation. The framework involves an extra scalar singlet, that plays the r\^ole of the…
We consider slow-roll inflation in the context of a modified Brans-Dicke dilaton gravity. From a two self-interacting potentials $V(\phi)$, we reproduce a Starobinsky-like potential and, commonly in syperstring models, an exponential tail…
We study a model of inflation based on $\mathcal{N}=1$ supergravity essentially depending on one effective parameter. Under a field transformation we show that this model turns out to be equivalent to a previously studied supergravity model…
We propose a novel scenario of inflation, in which the inflaton is identified as the lightest mode of an angular field in a compactified fifth dimension. The periodic effective potential exhibits exponentially flat plateaus, so that a…
Slow-roll inflation can be studied as an effective field theory. The form of the inflaton potential consistent with the data is V(phi) = N M^4 w(phi/[sqrt{N} M_{Pl}]) where phi is the inflaton field, M is the inflation energy scale, and N ~…
We study models of modular inflation of the form expected to arise from low energy effective actions of superstring theories. We argue on general grounds that the most likely models of modular slow-roll inflation are small field models in…
The increasingly stringent observational bounds on primordial gravitational waves strongly constrain inflationary model building, favoring scenarios that predict highly suppressed tensor perturbations. While many viable constructions rely…
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…
Motivated by the recent CMB $B$-mode observation announced by the BICEP2 collaboration, we study simple inflationary models in the Randall-Sundrum brane-world cosmology. Brane-world cosmological effects alter the inflationary predictions of…
Generically, the gravitational-wave or tensor-mode contribution to the primordial curvature spectrum of inflation is tiny if the field-range of the inflaton is much smaller than the Planck scale. We show that this pessimistic conclusion is…
We systematically show that in potential driven generalized G-inflation models, quantum corrections coming from new physics at the strong coupling scale can be avoided, while producing observable tensor modes. The effective action can be…
During inflation, there is a preferred reference frame in which the expansion of the background spacetime is spatially isotropic. In contrast to Minkowski spacetime, observables can depend on the velocity of the system with respect to this…
BICEP2 has observed a primordial gravitational wave corresponding to the tensor-to-scalar ratio of 0.16. It seems to require a super-Planckian inflationary model. In this paper, we propose a double hybrid inflation model, where the inflaton…
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…