Related papers: Low-$\ell$ CMB from String-Scale SUSY Breaking?
I elaborate on a link between the string--scale breaking of supersymmetry that occurs in a class of superstring models and the onset of inflation. The link rests on spatially flat cosmologies supported by a scalar field driven by an…
We present a semi--analytic exploration of some low--$\ell$ angular power spectra inspired by "Brane Supersymmetry Breaking". This mechanism splits Bose and Fermi excitations in String Theory, leaving behind an exponential potential that is…
"Brane supersymmetry breaking" occurs in String Theory when the only available combinations of D-branes and orientifolds are not mutually BPS and yet do not introduce tree-level tachyon instabilities. It is characterized by the emergence of…
String Theory and Supergravity allow, in principle, to follow the transition of the inflaton from pre-inflationary fast roll to slow roll. This introduces an infrared depression in the primordial power spectrum that might have left an…
"Brane Supersymmetry Breaking" is a peculiar string-scale mechanism that can unpair Bose and Fermi excitations in orientifold models. It results from the simultaneous presence, in the vacuum, of collections of D-branes and orientifolds that…
We discuss the implications for cosmic microwave background (CMB) observables, of a class of pre-inflationary dynamics suggested by string models where SUSY is broken due to the presence of D-branes and orientifolds preserving incompatible…
Adams et al. (1997b) have noted that according to our current understanding of the unification of fundamental interactions, there should have been phase transitions associated with spontaneous symmetry breaking {\em during} the inflationary…
By considering simple, but representative, models of brane inflation from a single brane-antibrane pair in the slow roll regime, we provide constraints on the parameters of the theory imposed by measurements of the CMB anisotropies by WMAP…
In this lecture I will review the present status of inflation within string-based brane-world scenarios. The idea is to start from a supersymmetric configuration with two parallel static Dp-branes, and slightly break the supersymmetry…
We build a number of integrable one--scalar spatially flat cosmologies, which play a natural role in inflationary scenarios, examine their behavior in several cases and draw from them some general lessons on this type of systems, whose…
Theories with elementary scalar degrees of freedom seem nowadays required for simple descriptions of the Standard Model and of the Early Universe. It is then natural to embed theories of inflation in supergravity, also in view of their…
Combination of Plank and BICEP2 data reported that tensor to scalar ratio $r\simeq 0.16$ and scalar spectral index $n_{s}\simeq 0.96$. In this short note, it is shown that chaotic inflation with quadratic potential, which perfectly accounts…
We consider gravitationally induced corrections to inflaton potentials driven by supersymmetry breaking in a five-dimensional supergravity, compactified on a $ S_1/Z_2 $ orbifold. The supersymmetry breaking takes place on the hidden brane…
In the context of colliding brane worlds I discuss a toy cosmological model, developed in collaboration with E. Gravanis, which arguably produces inflation and a relaxing to zero cosmological ``constant'' hierarchically small as compared to…
We study a new framework for brane-antibrane inflation where moduli stabilisation relies purely on perturbative corrections to the effective action. This guarantees that the model does not suffer from the eta-problem. The inflationary…
Non-supersymmetric brane world scenarios in string theory display perturbative instabilities that usually involve run-away potentials for scalar moduli fields. We investigate in the framework of intersecting brane worlds whether the leading…
Following \cite{Lin:2009yt}, we explore the parameter space of the case when the supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking scale is lower, for example, in gauge mediated SUSY breaking model. During inflation, the form of the potential is $V_0$ plus…
We compare the simplest realistic brane inflationary model to recent cosmological data, including WMAP 3-year cosmic microwave background (CMB) results, Sloan Digital Sky Survey luminous red galaxies (SDSS LRG) power spectrum data and…
In cosmological models where local cosmic strings are formed at the end of a period of inflation, the perturbations are seeded both by the defects and by the quantum fluctuations. In a subset of these models, for example those based on…
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…