Related papers: Scale-dependent gravitational waves from a rolling…
We discuss the possibility of a feature in the spectrum of inflationary gravitational waves sourced by a scalar field $\chi$ whose vacuum fluctuations are amplified by a rapidly time dependent mass. Unlike previous work which has focused on…
We look for oscillating signals in the primordial bispectrum from new physics heavy particles which are visibly large for next generation large scale structures (LSS) survey. We show that in ordinary inflation scenarios where a slow-rolling…
Cosmological perturbations, originating in the quantum fluctuations of the fields that drive inflation, are observed to be nearly scale invariant at the largest scales. At smaller scales, however, perturbations are not severely constrained…
In the light of the recent results concerning CMB observations and GW detection we address the question of whether it is possible, in a self-consistent inflationary framework, to simultaneously generate a spectrum of scalar metric…
We revisit the dynamics of the axial coupling between many N-flatons and an Abelian gauge field, with special attention to its statistically anisotropic signal. The anisotropic power spectrum of curvature perturbations associated to the…
Models of inflation based on axions, which owe their popularity to the robustness against UV corrections, have also a very distinct class of signatures. The relevant interactions of the axion are a non-perturbative oscillating contribution…
We construct a single-field model of inflation that achieves remarkable agreement with Planck and BICEP/Keck cosmological observations. The model, via the presence of an ultra-slow-roll phase, generates a sizable scalar-induced…
We examine a scalar-tensor model of gravity that is globally scale-invariant. When adapted to a spatially flat Robertson-Walker metric, the equations of motion describe a dynamical system that flows from an unstable de Sitter space to a…
Primordial tensor modes can induce Cosmic Microwave Background spectral distortions during horizon re-entry. We investigate a specific mechanism proposed for this purpose, characterized by the coupling of an SU(2) gauge field to an axion…
It is well-known that first order phase transitions in the early universe can be a powerful source of observable stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds. Any such gravitational wave background must exhibit large-scale anisotropies at…
In arXiv:0908.4089, we have proposed a model where natural inflation is realized on a steep potential as a consequence of the interaction of the inflaton with gauge fields through an axion-like coupling. In the present work we study the…
One of the most promising ways of detecting primordial gravitational waves generated during inflation is to observe B-modes of polarization, generated by Thomson scattering after reionization, in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Large…
A detection of primordial B-modes has been heralded not only as a smoking gun for the existence of inflation, but also as a way to establish the scale at which inflation took place. In this paper we critically reinvestigate the connection…
During or towards the end of inflation, the Standard Model (SM) Higgs forms a condensate with a large amplitude. Following inflation, the condensate oscillates, decaying non-perturbatively into the rest of the SM species. The resulting…
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…
We present a novel mechanism for gravitational wave generation in the early Universe. Light spectator scalar fields during inflation can acquire a blue-tilted power spectrum due to stochastic effects. We show that this effect can lead to…
We show that there are inflationary models for which perturbations in the energy momentum tensor, which are of second order in the scalar field, cannot be neglected. We first specify the conditions under which the usual first order…
There are at least three cosmic backgrounds of primordial gravitational waves coming from inflation: those produced during inflation and associated with the stretching of quantum modes; those produced at the violent stage of preheating…
We investigate the viability of inflation with a spectator sector comprised of non-Abelian gauge fields coupled through a higher order operator. We dub this model "spectator Gauge-flation". We study the predictions for the amplitude and…
Inflation produces a primordial spectrum of gravity waves in addition to the density perturbations which seed structure formation. We compute the signature of these gravity waves in the large scale shear field. In particular, the shear can…