Related papers: Disentangling the $f(R)$ - Duality
We study the conditions needed to have an early epoch of inflationary expansion with a potential coming from IIB superstring theory with fluxes involving two moduli fields. The phenomenology of this potential is different from the usual…
The vacuum $R^2$ model is known to generate a quasi-de Sitter evolution for inflation, using solely the slow-roll assumptions. Using standard reconstruction techniques, we demonstrate that the $f(R)$ gravity which actually realizes the…
A scalar field with an exponential potential has been proposed as a model of inflation (called power-law inflation). Although it admits an exact solution, the integrability of the system has not been shown.We uncover the hidden symmetries…
Superstring/M-theory is the theory of quantum gravity that can provide the UV-completion to viable inflation models. We modify the Starobinsky inflation model by adding the Bel-Robinson tensor $T^{\mu\nu\lambda\rho}$ squared term proposed…
We consider a class of multi-component hybrid inflation models whose evolution may be analytically solved under the slow-roll approximation. We call it multi-brid inflation (or $n$-brid inflation where $n$ stands for the number of inflaton…
Models of supersymmetric D-term inflation require a new mass scale near 10^{15-16} GeV in order to match the density perturbation spectrum observed by COBE. Attempts to obtain such a scale from the anomalous U(1) of string theories fail in…
We discuss the existence of inflationary solutions in a class of renormalization group improved polynomial f(R) theories, which have been studied recently in the context of the asymptotic safety scenario for quantum gravity. These theories…
The theory controlling the Universe's evolution in the classical regime has to be motivated by particle physics reasoning and should also generate inflation and dark energy eras in a unified way. One such framework is $F(R)$ gravity. In…
It is shown that in SO(10) and SU(5) models having a $U(1)_R$ symmetry, the requirement of breaking the unified group to the Standard Model leads to flat directions in the scalar potential. These can lead to a ``cosmological modulus…
Shift-symmetry is essential to protect the flatness of the potential, even beyond the super-Planckian vacuum expectation value (VEV) for an inflaton field. The breaking of the shift-symmetry can yield potentials suitable for super-Planckian…
We study the phenomenon of discrete symmetry breaking during the inflationary epoch, using a model-independent approach based on the effective field theory of inflation. We work in a context where both time reparameterization symmetry and…
The effective inflationary Lagrangian is a prominent challenge for theoretical cosmologists, since it may contain imprints of the quantum epoch. In view of the fact that higher order curvature terms might be present in the effective…
A scenario with two subsequent periods of inflationary expansion in the very early universe is examined. The model is based on a potential motivated by symmetries being found in field theory at high energy. For various parameter sets of the…
We clarify classical inflaton models by considering them as effective field theories `a la Ginzburg-Landau. In this approach, the WMAP statement excluding the pure phi^4 potential implies the presence of an inflaton mass term at the scale m…
Using an effective field theory approach to inflation, we examine novel properties of the spectrum of inflationary tensor fluctuations, that arise when breaking some of the symmetries or requirements usually imposed on the dynamics of…
In inflationary cosmology, the form of the potential is still an open problem. In this work, second-order effects of the inflationary potential are evaluated and related to the known formula for the primordial perturbations at a wide range…
We present here the effective theory of inflation `a la Ginsburg-Landau in which the inflaton potential is a polynomial. The slow-roll expansion becomes a systematic 1/N expansion where N ~ 60. The spectral index and the ratio of…
We investigate how long wavelength inflationary fluctuations can cause the background field to deviate from classical dynamics. For generic potentials, we show that, in the Hartree approximation, the long wavelength dynamics can be…
We study inflation in the framework of extended metric-affine F(R) gravity, where all even-parity quadratic invariants of torsion and non-metricity are included in the Lagrangian alongside the F(R) term. The extended theory admits a…
In the context of the infrared triangle there have been recent discussions on the existence and the role of dual charges. We present a new viewpoint on dual magnetic charges in $p$-form theories, and argue that they can be inherited from…