Related papers: Spotting deviations from R^2 inflation
We describe the primeval inflationary phase of the early Universe within a quantum field theoretical (QFT) framework that can be viewed as the effective action of vacuum decay in the early times. Interestingly enough, the model accounts for…
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…
We discuss the initial conditions problem for inflation driven by the vacuum energy of a plateau potential, and in particular the Starobinsky inflation. We show that the supergravity embedding of the $R+R^2$ theory naturally decreases the…
We present a model of inflation based on the anomaly-induced effective action of gravity in the presence of a conformally invariant Hilbert-Einstein term. Our approach is based on the conformal representation of the fields action and on the…
In this paper we investigate the implications of having a varying second slow-roll index on the canonical scalar field inflationary dynamics. We shall be interested in cases that the second slow-roll can take small values and…
In non-canonical two-field inflation models, deviations from the canonical model can be captured by a parameter $\xi$. We show this parameter is usually one half of the slow-roll order and analytically calculate the primordial power spectra…
Starting from parametrization of scalar perturbations generated during inflation in terms of $e$--fold $N$ and using an approach recently developed by Starobinsky, dubbed "direct smooth reconstruction", we show that, in the slow--roll…
These lecture notes have been written for a short introductory course on the status of inflation after Planck and BICEP2, given at the Xth Modave School of Mathematical Physics. The first objective is to give an overview of the theory of…
In standard multi-field models, tachyonic isocurvature perturbations generally indicate the presence of an instability. We revisit the stability of some known counterexamples and show that, in a certain class of models that we call ultra…
This review article aims at presenting the theory of inflation. We first describe the background spacetime behavior during the slow-roll phase and analyze how inflation ends and the Universe reheats. Then, we present the theory of…
Supergravity embedding of the Standard Model of particle physics provides phenomenologically well-motivated and observationally viable inflationary scenarios. We investigate a class of inflationary models based on the superconformal…
The theory of General Relativity was established on a spacetime manifold equipped with a metric tensor, $(\mathcal{M}_4,\text{g})$, and the connection on $\mathcal{M}_4$ identified with the Levi-Civita one. Even though there are valid…
We consider models of chaotic inflation driven by the real parts of a conjugate pair of Higgs superfields involved in the spontaneous breaking of a grand unification symmetry at a scale assuming its supersymmetric value. We combine a…
Natural supergravity models of new inflation are reconsidered as minimal inflationary models within slow-roll approximation. Their running spectral index is derived in a revised form with recent observational results and future refinements…
In the approach of the effective field theory of modified gravity, we derive the second-order action and the equation of motion for tensor perturbations on the flat isotropic cosmological background. This analysis accommodates a wide range…
In the context of an inflationary Randall-Sundrum Type II braneworld (RS2) we calculate spectral indices and amplitudes of cosmological scalar and tensor perturbations, up to second order in slow-roll parameters. Under very simple…
We study cosmological perturbations generated from quantum fluctuations in multi-field inflationary scenarios in generalized Einstein theories, taking both adiabatic and isocurvature modes into account. In the slow-roll approximation,…
We propose a scalar inflationary potential as $V(\phi)=M^4\phi^{2n-2}(\phi^{2n}+m^{2n})^{1/n-1}$. This potential is similar to the shaft inflation one. However, they satisfy the $Z_2$ symmetry for all $n$. The potential may come from the…
We consider k-inflation models where the action is a non-linear function of both the inflaton and the inflaton kinetic term. We focus on a scalar-tensor extension of k-inflation coupled to matter for which we derive a modified…
Supersymmetry is the most natural framework for physics above the TeV scale, and the corresponding framework for early-Universe cosmology, including inflation, is supergravity. No-scale supergravity emerges from generic string…