Related papers: Pre-Inflationary Relics in the CMB?
Models of inflation are instructive playgrounds for supersymmetry breaking in Supergravity and String Theory. In particular, combinations of branes and orientifolds that are not mutually BPS can lead to \emph{brane supersymmetry breaking},…
We consider that the pre-inflation era is radiation-dominated, transiting smoothly to the inflationary era. We work out in detail the dynamics of inflaton fluctuations across the phase transition and the proper choices of initial vacuum…
Generically,the classical evolution of the inflaton has a brief fast roll stage that precedes the slow roll regime. The fast roll stage leads to a purely attractive potential for the curvature and tensor perturbations (this potential is…
Recent cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations put strong constraints on the spatial curvature via estimation of the parameter $\Omega_k$ assuming an almost scale invariant primordial power spectrum. We study the evolution of the…
We investigate inflationary scenarios driven by a class of potentials which are similar in form to those that arise in certain minimal supersymmetric extensions of the standard model. We find that these potentials allow a brief period of…
The latest Planck results show a power deficit in the temperature anisotropies near $\ell \approx 20$ in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This observation can hardly be explained within the standard inflationary…
We show that deviations of the quantum state of the inflaton from the thermal vacuum of inflation may leave an imprint in the CMB anisotropies. The quantum dynamics of the inflaton in such a state produces corrections to the inflationary…
We analyze constraints on parameters characterizing the pre-inflating universe in an open inflation model with a present slightly open $\Lambda$CDM universe. We employ an analytic model to show that for a broad class of inflation-generating…
Space-based missions studying the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have progressively refined the parameter space in conventional models of inflation shortly ($\sim 10^{-37}$ seconds) after the big bang. While most inflationary scenarios…
Within the context of supersymmetric hybrid inflation, we study a multiple-stage inflationary scenario that can generate a primordial spectrum of adiabatic density perturbations with a break at $k_b \simeq 0.05 h Mpc^{-1}$. The presence of…
We revisit the scenario where inflation is preceded by a radiation era by considering that the inflaton too could have been in thermal equilibrium early in the radiation era. Hence we take into account not only the effect of a…
Cosmologists have embraced a particular ad hoc formula for the primordial power spectrum from inflation for universes with $\Omega_0 < 1$. However, the so-called ``Open Inflation'' models, which are attracting renewed interest in the…
There is an apparent power deficit relative to the Lambda-CDM prediction of the CMB spectrum at large scales, which, though not yet statistically significant, persists from WMAP to Planck data. We first present a simple toy model…
The observational constraints on the primordial power spectrum have tightened considerably with the release of the first year analysis of the WMAP observations, especially when combined with the results from other CMB experiments and galaxy…
The recent Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) measurements indicate that there is power deficiency of the CMB anisotropies at large scales compared with the $\Lambda$CDM model. We have investigated the possibility of explaining such effects…
Recently, the Planck 2013 results showed possible evidence for a dipolar power modulation of the CMB temperature fluctuations at low--(\ell) multipoles. This anomaly might imply certain deviations from statistical isotropy. To incorporate…
Recent Planck measurements show some CMB anomalies on large angular scales, which confirms the early observations by WMAP. We show that an inflationary model, in which before the slow-roll inflation the Universe is in a superinflationary…
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropy power on the largest angular scales observed both by WMAP and COBE DMR appears to be lower than the one predicted by the standard model of cosmology with almost scale free primordial…
The enormous red-shifting of the modes during the inflationary epoch suggests that physics at the very high energy scales may modify the primordial perturbation spectrum. Therefore, the measurements of the anisotropies in the Cosmic…
We construct a string-inspired nonsingular cosmological scenario in which an inflaton field is driven up the potential before the graceful exit by employing a low-energy string effective action with an orbifold compactification. This sets…