Related papers: Asymptotically safe inflation from quadratic gravi…
A period of rapidly accelerating expansion is expected in the early Universe implemented by a scalar field slowly rolling down along an asymptotically flat potential preferred by the current data. In this paper, we point out that this…
It is natural to expect a consistent inflationary model of the very early Universe to be an effective theory of quantum gravity, at least at energies much less than the Planck one. For the moment, $R+R^2$, or shortly $R^2$, inflation is the…
We dig into the semi-classical description of gravity by studying one-loop corrections to primordial power spectra generated during cosmic inflation from gravitational nonlinear interactions. In the realm of the Effective Field Theory (EFT)…
More than three decades ago quadratic gravity was found to present a perturbative, renormalizable and asymptotically free theory of quantum gravity. Unfortunately the theory appeared to have problems with a spin-2 ghost. In this essay we…
We propose a new class of inflation model, G-inflation, which has a Galileon-like nonlinear derivative interaction of the form $G(\phi, (\nabla\phi)^2)\Box\phi$ in the Lagrangian with the resultant equations of motion being of second order.…
An extension of the Standard Model with three right-handed neutrinos and a simple invisible axion model can account for all experimentally confirmed signals of new physics (neutrino oscillations, dark matter and baryon asymmetry) in…
We investigate in detail a family of quintessential inflation models in the context of $R+R^2$ Palatini modified gravity. We find that successful inflation and quintessence are obtained with an inflaton scalar potential that is…
We present an introduction to cosmic inflation in the framework of Palatini gravity, which provides an intriguing alternative to the conventional metric formulation of gravity. In the latter, only the metric specifies the spacetime…
The $R^2$ inflation which is an extension of general relativity (GR) by quadratic scalar curvature introduces a quasi-de Sitter expansion of the early Universe governed by Ricci scalar being an eigenmode of d'Alembertian operator. In this…
We study a recently proposed running kinetic inflation model in which the inflaton potential becomes flat due to rapid growth of the kinetic term at large inflaton field values. As concrete examples, we build a variety of chaotic inflation…
After the release of the PLANCK data, it is evident that inflationary paradigm has stood the test of time. Even though, it is difficult to realise inflationary paradigm in a particle physics model as the present observations have ruled out…
In scale-invariant models of fundamental physics all mass scales are generated via spontaneous symmetry breaking. In this work, we study inflation in scale-invariant quadratic gravity, in which the Planck mass is generated classically by a…
In this note we demonstrate that chaotic inflation can naturally be realized in the context of an anomaly free minimal gauged supergravity in D=6 which has recently been the focus of some attention. This particular model has a unique…
Motivated by the reported discovery of inflationary gravity waves by the BICEP2 experiment, we propose an inflationary scenario in supergravity, based on the standard superpotential used in hybrid inflation. The new model yields a…
We introduce a new class of models of chaotic inflation inspired by the superconformal approach to supergravity. This class of models allows a functional freedom of choice of the inflaton potential V = |f(\phi)|^2. The simplest model of…
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…
In the asymptotic safety paradigm, a quantum field theory reaches a regime with quantum scale invariance in the ultraviolet, which is described by an interacting fixed point of the Renormalization Group. Compelling hints for the viability…
We perform an analysis of models of chaotic inflation where the inflaton field $\phi$ is coupled non-minimally to gravity via $\xi \phi^n g^{\mu\nu}R_{\mu\nu}(\Gamma), n>0$. We focus on the Palatini theory of gravity, i.e. the case where…
The spectrum of primordial gravitational waves is one of the most robust inflationary observables, often thought of as a direct probe of the energy scale of inflation. We present a simple model, where the dynamics controlling this…
We explore the possibility that the fundamental theory of nature does not contain any scale. This implies a renormalizable quantum gravity theory where the graviton kinetic term has 4 derivatives, and can be reinterpreted as gravity minus…