Related papers: Non-Gaussianity as a Particle Detector
When energy is not conserved, imprints of new physics on observable cosmology might not follow the rules of local effective actions. By capturing dissipative and diffusive effects, open effective field theories account for the possibly…
Gravitational interferometers and cosmological observations of the cosmic microwave background offer us the prospect to probe the laws of gravity in the primordial universe. To study and interpret these datasets we need to know the possible…
We consider inflation within a model framework where the Higgs boson arises as a pseudo-Goldstone boson associated with the breaking of a global symmetry at a scale significantly larger than the electroweak one. We show that in such a model…
We show that modifications of Einstein gravity during inflation could leave potentially measurable imprints on cosmological observables in the form of non-Gaussian perturbations. This is due to the fact that these modifications appear in…
The Cosmic Microwave Background can provide information regarding physics of the very early universe, more specifically, of the matter-radiation distribution of the inflationary era. Starting from the effective field theory of inflation, we…
Building on Weinberg's approach to effective field theory for inflation, we construct an effective Lagrangian for a pseudo scalar (axion) inflaton field with shift symmetry. In this Lagrangian we allow the axion field to couple to…
We extend the reach of the ``cosmological collider'' for massive gauge boson production during inflation from the CMB scales to the interferometer scales. Considering a Chern-Simons coupling between the gauge bosons and the pseudoscalar…
In writing a covariant effective action for single field inflation, one is allowed to add a Gauss-Bonnet and axion-type curvature couplings. These couplings represent modifications of gravity, and are the unique higher-curvature terms that…
We study the slow-roll inflation models, where the inflaton slow-rolls along a trajectory whose orthogonal directions are lifted by potentials with masses of order the Hubble parameter. In these models large non-Gaussianities can be…
Supersymmetry plays a fundamental role in the radiative stability of many inflationary models. Spontaneous breaking of the symmetry inevitably leads to fields with masses of order the Hubble scale during inflation. When these fields couple…
Interactions between the inflaton and any additional fields can lead to isolated bursts of particle production during inflation (for example from parametric resonance or a phase transition). Inflationary particle production leaves localized…
A field kinetic coupling with the Einstein tensor leads to a gravitationally enhanced friction during inflation, by which even steep potentials with theoretically natural model parameters can drive cosmic acceleration. In the presence of…
Primordial perturbations with wavelengths greater than the observable universe shift the effective background fields in our observable patch from their global averages over the inflating space. This leads to a landscape picture where the…
We consider the UV-protected inflation, where the inflaton potential is obtained by quantum (one-loop) breaking of a global symmetry into a discrete symmetry. In this model, all coupling scales are sub-Planckian. This is achieved by…
We study theoretically and experimentally the quantification of non-Gaussian distributions via non-destructive measurements. Using the theory of cumulants, their unbiased estimators, and the uncertainties of these estimators, we describe a…
We study a model of inflation where the scalar perturbations are almost gaussian while there is sizable (equilateral) nongaussianity in the tensor sector. In this model, a rolling pseudoscalar gravitationally coupled to the inflaton…
In our quest to understand the generation of cosmological perturbations, we face two serious obstacles: we do not have direct information about the environment experienced by primordial perturbations during inflation, and our observables…
We investigate the non-perturbative production of scalar particles within the Higgs-$R^2$ inflation model, focusing on a massive spectator field that interacts gravitationally via a non-minimal coupling to the Ricci scalar $R$. By…
We compute analytic expressions for the non-linearity parameters characterizing the bi- and tri-spectrum of primordial curvature perturbations generated during an inflationary epoch of the early universe driven by an arbitrary number of…
We construct the Supersymmetric Effective Field Theory of Inflation, that is the most general theory of inflationary fluctuations when time-translations and supersymmetry are spontaneously broken. The non-linear realization of these…