Related papers: Prospects for Primordial Gravitational Waves in St…
We calculate the spectrum of gravitational waves generated during inflation in open $(\Omega _0<1)$ inflationary models. In such models an initial epoch of old inflation solves the horizon and flatness problems, and during this first epoch…
An exploratory study of the cosmology of moduli in string theory. Moduli are argued to be natural inflaton fields and lead to a robust inflationary cosmology in which inflation takes place at the top of domain walls. The amplitude of…
We investigate the origin and evolution of primordial electric and magnetic fields in the early universe, when the expansion is governed by a cosmological constant $\Lambda_0$. Using the gravitoelectromagnetic inflationary formalism with…
In low-energy effective string theory and modified gravity theories, the propagating speed $c_T$ of primordial gravitational waves may deviate from unity. We find that the step-like variation of $c_T$ during slow-roll inflation may result…
Physical scenarios, leading to highly energetic stochastic gravitational waves backgrounds (for frequencies ranging from the $\mu$Hz up to the GHz) are examined. In some cases the typical amplitude of the logarithmic energy spectrum can be…
We propose a new single field inflation model in which the usual slow-roll inflation is joined to a new period of slow-climb and slow-roll inflation through a short intermediate non-inflationary phase. We then show that primordial curvature…
In effective supergravity theories following from the superstring, a modulus field can quite naturally set the neccessary initial conditions for successful cosmological inflation to be driven by a hidden sector scalar field. The leading…
Compared to primordial perturbations on large scales, roughly larger than $1$ megaparsec, those on smaller scales are not severely constrained. We revisit the issue of probing small-scale primordial perturbations using gravitational waves…
Inflationary gravitational waves, behaving as additional radiation in the Early Universe, can increase the effective number of relativistic species ($N_{\rm eff}$) by a further correction that depends on the integrated energy-density in…
The next generation of space-borne gravitational wave detectors may detect gravitational waves from extreme mass-ratio inspirals with primordial black holes. To produce primordial black holes which contribute a non-negligible abundance of…
The majority of models of inflation in string theory predict an absence of measurable gravitational waves, r << 10^{-3}. The most promising proposals for making string theoretic models that yield measurable tensor fluctuations involve axion…
The gravitational waves measured at LIGO are presumed here to come from merging primordial black holes. We ask how these primordial black holes could arise through inflationary models while not conflicting with current experiments. Among…
A direct detection of primordial gravitational waves is the ultimate probe for any inflation model. While current CMB bounds predict the generic scale-invariant gravitational wave spectrum from slow-roll inflation to be below the reach of…
We illustrate the main points behind the computation of the gravitational wave spectrum originated from a phase in the early universe where the energy density is dominated by highly excited fundamental string degrees of freedom - a Hagedorn…
The origin of magnetic fields observed on both astrophysical and cosmological scales is a compelling problem that has the potential to shed light on the early Universe. We analytically investigate inflationary magnetogenesis in scenarios…
In this PhD thesis, we investigate generic features of inflation which are strictly related to fundamental aspects of UV-physics scenarios, such as string theory or supergravity. After a short introduction to standard and inflationary…
We demonstrate that the approximation for the number of inflationary e-folds commonly used in the literature can lead to highly inaccurate predictions for the amplitude of primordial gravitational waves. We show that such an approximation…
We study primordial perturbations from hyperinflation, proposed recently and based on a hyperbolic field-space. In the previous work, it was shown that the field-space angular momentum supported by the negative curvature modifies the…
The primordial irreducible gravitational-wave background due to quantum vacuum tensor fluctuations produced during inflation spans a large range of frequencies with an almost scale-invariant spectrum but is too low to be detected by the…
The reheating of the universe after hybrid inflation proceeds through the nucleation and subsequent collision of large concentrations of energy density in the form of bubble-like structures moving at relativistic speeds. This generates a…