Related papers: Constraints on variations in inflaton decay rate f…
Primordial magnetic fields are generated during inflation by considering actions that break the conformal invariance of the electromagnetic field. To break the conformal invariance, the electromagnetic fields are coupled either to the…
We consider a two-dimensional model of inflation, where the inflationary trajectory is "deformed" by a grazing encounter with an Extra Species/Symmetry Point (ESP) after the observable cosmological scales have left the Hubble radius. The…
The concept of early Universe inflation resolves several problems of hot Big Bang theory and quantitatively explains the origin of the inhomogeneities in the present Universe. However, it is not possible to arrange inflation in a scalar…
We obtain very stringent bounds on the possible cold dark matter, baryon and neutrino isocurvature contributions to the primordial fluctuations in the Universe, using recent cosmic microwave background and large scale structure data. In…
In an inflationary cosmology, the observed primoridal density perturbation could come from the quantum fluctuations of another light 'curvaton' field, rather than the inflaton. In this case, it is essential that the curvaton decays,…
Motivated by their potential role as dark matter, we study the cosmological evolution of light scalar and vector fields non-minimally coupled to gravity. Our focus is on a situation where the dominant contribution to the energy density…
We study preheating in theories where the inflaton couples derivatively to scalar and gauge fields. Such couplings may dominate in natural models of inflation, in which the flatness of the inflaton potential is related to an approximate…
We study a mechanism for the amplification of the inflationary scalar perturbation when the inflaton field action is non-canonical, i.e. the inflaton kinetic term has a non-standard form. For such a case the speed of sound of the…
After cosmic inflation and before the transition to radiation domination, the cosmic energy density may have been dominated during an extended period by an oscillating massive scalar condensate. We show that during this period, sub-Hubble…
We investigate the CMB $\mu$ distortion in models where two uncorrelated sources contribute to primordial perturbations. We parameterise each source by an amplitude, tilt, running and running of the running. We perform a detailed analysis…
We study the production of a beyond the Standard Model (BSM) free-streaming relativistic particles which contribute to $N_{eff}$ and investigate how much the predictions for the inflationary analysis change. We consider inflaton decay as…
Inflation creates perturbations for the large scale structures in the universe, but it also dilutes everything. Therefore it is pertinent that the end of inflation must explain how to excite the Standard Model {\it dof} along with the dark…
It is tempting to inflate along one of the many flat directions that arise in supersymmetric theories. The required flatness of the potential to obtain sufficient inflation and to not overproduce density fluctuations occurs naturally.…
Since a positive future detection of non-linearity in the cosmic microwave background anisotropy pattern might allow to descriminate among different mechanisms giving rise to cosmological adiabatic perturbations, we study the evolution of…
The cosmological curvature perturbation may be generated when some `curvaton' field, different from the inflaton, oscillates in a background of unperturbed radiation. In its simplest form the curvaton paradigm requires the Hubble parameter…
We consider the possible decay of the inflaton into curvaton particles during reheating and analyse its effect on curvaton scenarios. Typical decay curvatons are initially relativistic then become non-relativistic, changing the background…
The generic prediction for the perturbations generated during slow--roll, single--field inflation, as they appear in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), is a flat, close--to--Gaussian spectrum. We calculate the general solution for a…
Compensated isocurvature perturbations are opposite spatial fluctuations in the baryon and dark matter (DM) densities. They arise in the curvaton model and some models of baryogenesis. While the gravitational effects of baryon fluctuations…
We study how Abelian-gauge-field production during inflation affects scalar perturbations in the case when the gauge field interacts with the inflaton directly (by means of generic kinetic and axial couplings) and via gravity. The…
In this work we study the imprints of bubble nucleation on primordial inflationary perturbations. We assume that the bubble is formed via the tunneling of a spectator field from the false vacuum of its potential to its true vacuum. We…