Related papers: Weak Gravity Strongly Constrains Large-Field Axion…
Inflationary models driven by a large number of axion fields are discussed in the context of type IIB compactifications with N=1 supersymmetry. The inflatons arise as the scalar modes of the R-R two-forms evaluated on vanishing two-cycles…
The BICEP2 observations, if confirmed, point to a high scale of inflation and large field excursions during the inflationary era. Non-compact string moduli spaces are a suggestive setting for these phenomena. While unlikely to be described…
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…
A popular proposal for resolving the Hubble tension involves an early phase of dark energy, driven by an axion field with a periodic potential. In this paper, we argue that these models are tightly constrained by the axion weak gravity…
String theory models of axion monodromy inflation exhibit scalar potentials which are quadratic for small values of the inflaton field and evolve to a more complicated function for large field values. Oftentimes the large field behaviour is…
We derive the requirements that a generic axion-like field has to satisfy in order to play the role of the inflaton field in the warm inflation scenario. Compared to the parameter space in ordinary natural inflation models, we find that the…
We study multifield contributions to the scalar power spectrum in an ensemble of six-field inflationary models obtained in string theory. We identify examples in which inflation occurs by chance, near an approximate inflection point, and we…
Inflation, as currently understood, requires the presence of fields with very flat potentials. Supersymmetric models in which supersymmetry breaking is communicated by supergravity naturally yield such fields, but the scales are typically…
We propose new large field inflation scenarios built on the framework of F-term axion monodromy. Our setup is based on string compactifications where D-branes create potentials for closed string axions via F-terms. Because the source of the…
We consider a simple inflation model with a complex scalar field coupled to gravity non-minimally. Both the modulus and the angular directions of the complex scalar are slowly rolling, leading to two-field inflation. The modulus direction…
We derive a simple model-independent upper bound on the strength of magnetic fields obtained in inflationary and post-inflationary magnetogenesis taking into account the constraints imposed by the condition of weak coupling, back-reaction…
Multifield models of inflation with nonminimal couplings are in excellent agreement with the recent results from {\it Planck}. Across a broad range of couplings and initial conditions, such models evolve along an effectively single-field…
Slow-roll inflation generically makes several predictions: a flat Universe, primordial adiabatic density perturbations, and a stochastic gravity-wave background. Each inflation model will further predict specific relations between the…
Although natural inflation is a theoretically well-motivated model for cosmic inflation, it is in tension with recent Planck cosmic microwave background anisotropy measurements. We present a way to alleviate this tension by considering a…
It is an interesting question whether low energy degrees of freedom may be responsible for early universe inflation. To examine this, here we present a simple version of Higgs-inflation with minimal coupling to gravity and a quadratic…
Motivated by the possibility of inflation in the cosmic landscape, which may be approximated by a complicated potential, we study the density perturbations in multi-field inflation with a random potential. The random potential causes the…
We construct models of inflation with many randomly interacting fields and use these to study the generation of cosmological observables. We model the potentials as multi-dimensional Gaussian random fields (GRFs) and identify powerful…
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…
Recent LHC data provides precise values of coupling constants of the Higgs field, however, these measurements do not determine its coupling with gravity. We explore this freedom to see whether Higgs field non-minimally coupled to…
We study the pattern of oscillations in the primordial power spectrum in axion monodromy inflation, accounting for drifts in the oscillation period that can be important for comparing to cosmological data. In these models the potential…