Related papers: From stable to unstable anomaly-induced inflation
We explore conformal-anomaly driven inflation in $F(R)$ gravity without invoking the scalar-tensor representation. We derive the stress-energy tensor of the quantum anomaly in the flat homogeneous and isotropic universe. We investigate a…
It was argued that the Raychaudhuri equation with a quantum correction term seems to avoid the Big Bang singularity and to characterize an everlasting Universe [PLB741,276(2015)]. Critical comments on both conclusions and on the correctness…
We consider a universe in which inflation commences because of a positive cosmological constant, the effect of which is progressively screened by the interaction between virtual gravitons that become trapped in the expansion of spacetime.…
In this paper we study canonical scalar field models with a varying second slow-roll parameter, that allow transitions between constant-roll eras. In the models with two constant-roll eras it is possible to avoid fine-tunings in the initial…
We develop a physics-facing version of the persistence/transition-variety framework for scalar-field cosmology, tailored to inflationary dynamics. The guiding idea is that observationally viable inflationary models are often best understood…
It is shown that a large class of higher-order (i.e. non-quadratic) scalar kinetic terms can, without the help of potential terms, drive an inflationary evolution starting from rather generic initial conditions. In many models, this…
The stochastic inflation program is a framework for understanding the dynamics of a quantum scalar field driving an inflationary phase. Though widely used and accepted, there have over recent years been serious criticisms of this theory. In…
We study the observable implications of an incomplete first order phase transition during inflation. In such a phase transition, the nucleated bubbles do not percolate and instead are continuously produced until the onset of reheating. The…
(Shortened abstract) While a featureless, nearly scale invariant, primordial scalar power spectrum fits the most recent CMB data rather well, certain features in the spectrum are known to lead to a better fit to the data (although, the…
The Starobinsky model, considered in the framework of the Palatini formalism, in contrast to the metric formulation, does not provide us with a model for inflation, due to the absence of a propagating scalar degree of freedom that can play…
We compute analytically the dominant contribution to the tree-level bispectrum in the Starobinsky model of inflation. In this model, the potential is vacuum energy dominated but contains a subdominant linear term which changes the slope…
The physics of the inflationary universe requires the study of the out of equilibrium evolution of quantum fields in curved spacetime. We present the evolution for both the geometry and the matter (described by the quantum inflaton field)…
Higgs inflation and $R^2$-inflation (Starobinsky model) are two limits of the same quantum model, hereafter called Starobinsky-Higgs. We analyse the two-loop action of the Higgs-like scalar $\phi$ in the presence of: 1) non-minimal coupling…
The scenario of constant-roll inflation is studied where the inflaton is a scalar field with modified kinetic term, known as non-canonical scalar field. This modification leads to some changes in the slow-roll parameters, and also by taking…
We study the non-linear dynamics of an inflationary phase transition in a quartically self coupled inflaton model within the framework of a de Sitter background. Large N and Hartree non-perturbative approximations combined with…
The anomaly-induced inflation (modified Starobinsky model) is based on the application of the effective quantum field theory approach to the Early Universe. We present a brief general review of this model with a special attention to the…
Models such as Natural Inflation that use Pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons (PNGB's) as the inflaton are attractive for many reasons. However, they typically require trans-Planckian field excursions $\Delta \Phi>M_{\rm Pl}$, due to the need for…
An extension of the Starobinsky model is proposed. Besides the usual Starobinsky Lagrangian, a term proportional to the derivative of the scalar curvature, $\nabla_{\mu}R\nabla^{\mu}R$, is considered. The analyzis is done in the Einstein…
The fundamental difficulty in constructing a viable classical bouncing model is to evade the no-go theorem that states that, simultaneously maintaining the observational bounds on the tensor-to-scalar ratio and the non-Gaussian scalar…
We find a unique way of realizing inflation through cyclic phases in an universe with negative vacuum energy. According to the second law of thermodynamics entropy monotonically increases from cycle to cycle, typically by a constant factor.…