Related papers: Encyclopaedia Curvatonis
Bayesian inference techniques are used to investigate situations where an additional light scalar field is present during inflation and reheating. This includes (but is not limited to) curvaton-type models. We design a numerical pipeline…
We derive the first systematic observational constraints on reheating in models of inflation where an additional light scalar field contributes to primordial density perturbations and affects the expansion history during reheating. This…
In inflationary scenarios with more than one scalar field, inflation may proceed even if each of the individual fields has a potential too steep for that field to sustain inflation on its own. We show that scalar fields with exponential…
In this thesis we will primarily demonstrate how additional scalar degrees of freedom - which are motivated from many high-energy embeddings - open up new observational windows onto the physics of inflation. We construct a Bayesian…
Current observations indicate that an inverse exponential form of the inflaton potential provides an excellent description of single-field inflation. This potential fits the SPA$+$BK$+$DESI data sets well with in the $1\sigma$ bound in the…
The observational signatures of multi-field inflation will generally evolve as the Universe reheats. We introduce a general analytic formalism for tracking this evolution through perturbative reheating, applicable to two field models with…
We review the theory of inflation with single and multiple fields paying particular attention to the dynamics of adiabatic and entropy/isocurvature perturbations which provide the primary means of testing inflationary models. We review the…
We investigate the dynamics of the recently proposed model of assisted inflation. In this model an arbitrary number of scalar fields with exponential potentials evolve towards an inflationary scaling solution, even if each of the individual…
We study inflation in models with many interacting fields subject to randomly generated scalar potentials. We use methods from non-equilibrium random matrix theory to construct the potentials and an adaption of the 'transport method' to…
We develop a covariant method for studying the effects of a reheating phase on the primordial adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations in two-field models of inflation. To model the decay of the scalar fields into radiation at the end of…
Inflation offers a simple model for very early evolution of our Universe and the origin of primordial perturbations on large scales. Over the last 25 years we have become familiar with the predictions of single-field models, but inflation…
We provide an update on five relatively well motivated inflationary models in which the inflaton is a Standard Model singlet scalar field. These include i) the textbook quadratic and quartic potential models but with additional couplings of…
The robustness of multi-field inflation to the physics of reheating is investigated. In order to carry out this study, reheating is described in detail by means of a formalism which tracks the evolution of scalar fields and perfect fluids…
We consider reheating in a class of asymptotically safe quantum field theories recently studied in \cite{Litim:2014uca, Litim:2015iea}. These theories allow for an inflationary phase in the very early universe. Inflation ends with a period…
We study two-field inflation derived from a single complex scalar field with a nonzero vacuum expectation value. The dynamics of inflation are governed by two parameters, the vacuum expectation value and the mass parameter of the phase…
Planck data has not found the 'smoking gun' of non-Gaussianity that would have necessitated consideration of inflationary models beyond the simplest canonical single field scenarios. This raises the important question of what these results…
Coupled, multi-field models of inflation can provide several attractive features unavailable in the case of a single inflaton field. These models have a rich dynamical structure resulting from the interaction of the fields and their…
There might be a light scalar field during inflation which is not responsible for the accelerating inflationary expansion. Then, its quantum fluctuation is stretched during inflation. This scalar field could be a curvaton, if it decays at a…
We consider $R^2$ inflation in the Palatini gravity assuming the existence of scalar fields, coupled to gravity in the most general manner. These theories, in the Einstein frame, and for one scalar field $h$, share common features with $K$…
The mechanism of the initial inflationary scenario of the universe and of its late-time acceleration can be described by assuming the existence of some gravitationally coupled scalar fields $\phi $, with the inflaton field generating…