Related papers: Testing Inflation with Large Scale Structure: Conn…
I review the standard paradigm for understanding the formation and evolution of cosmic structure, based on the gravitational instability of dark matter, but many variations on this basic theme are viable. Despite the great progress that has…
We present a generic inference method for inflation models from observational data by the usage of higher-order statistics of the curvature perturbation on uniform density hypersurfaces. This method is based on the calculation of the…
In a variety of inflation models the motion of the inflaton may trigger the production of some non-inflaton particles during inflation, for example via parametric resonance or a phase transition. Particle production during inflation leads…
We propose a new mechanism to generate primordial curvature perturbations, based on the resonant production of particles during inflation. It is known that this phenomenon can trap the inflaton for a fraction of e-fold. This effect is…
We study thermally induced density perturbations during inflation. This scenario is characterized by two thermodynamical conditions: (1) The primordial perturbations originate in the epoch when the inflationary universe contains a…
We investigate if the observed small and nearly scale-invariant primordial cosmic perturbation, i.e. the perturbation amplitude $P_\zeta\sim10^{-9}$ and the spectral index $n_s \simeq 0.965$, is typical in the landscape of vacua after…
Inflation creates large-scale cosmological density perturbations that are characterized by an isotropic, homogeneous, and Gaussian random distribution about a locally flat background. Even in a flat universe, the spatial curvature measured…
Future galaxy surveys promise to probe local primordial non-Gaussianity at unprecedented precision, $\sigma(f_{\rm NL}) \lesssim 1$. We study the implications for multifield inflation by considering spectator models, where inflation is…
We construct explicit models of multi-field inflation in which the primordial metric fluctuations do not necessarily obey Gaussian statistics. These models are realizations of mechanisms in which non-Gaussianity is first generated by a…
Simple models of single-field inflation in the very early universe can generate the observed amplitude and scale dependence of the primordial density perturbation, but models with multiple fields can provide an equally good fit to current…
The scale--independence of the primordial curvature perturbation suggests that it comes from the vacuum fluctuation during inflation of a light scalar field. This field may be the inflaton, or a different `curvaton' field. The observation…
Primordial non-Gaussianity is a potentially powerful discriminant of the physical mechanisms that generated the cosmological fluctuations observed today. Any detection of significant non-Gaussianity would thus have profound implications for…
A short inflationary phase may not erase all traces of the primordial universe. Associated observables include both spatial curvature and "anomalies" in the microwave background or large scale structure. The present curvature $\Omega_{K,0}$…
Measurements of the non-Gaussianity of the primordial density field have the power to considerably improve our understanding of the physics of inflation. Indeed, if we can increase the precision of current measurements by an order of…
Fluctuations play a critical role in cosmology. They are relevant across a range of phenomena from the dynamics of inflation to the formation of structure. In many cases, these fluctuations are coarse grained and follow a Gaussian…
Cosmic inflation may have led to non-Gaussian initial conditions that cannot be fully parametrised by 3- and/or 4-point functions. In this work, we discuss various strategies to search for primordial non-Gaussianity beyond polyspectra with…
A major goal of cosmology is to understand the nature of the field(s) which drove primordial Inflation. Through future observations, the statistics of large-scale structure will allow us to probe primordial non-Gaussianity of the curvature…
The primordial four-point function encodes a wealth of information about the inflationary Universe. Despite extensive theoretical work, most models of four-point physics have never been compared to data. In this series, we conduct a…
We investigate thermal inflation in double-screen entropic cosmology. We find that its realization is general, resulting from the system evolution from non-equilibrium to equilibrium. Furthermore, going beyond the background evolution, we…
We analyse the efficiency of future large scale structure surveys to unveil the presence of scale dependent features in the primordial spectrum --resulting from cosmic inflation-- imprinted in the distribution of galaxies. Features may…