Related papers: Inflation with a graceful exit in a random landsca…
We use the excited coherent states built over the initial non-de Sitter modes, to study the modification of spectra of primordial scalar fluctuation. Non-de Sitter modes are actually the asymptotic solution of the inflaton field…
We study the effects of the non-attractor initial conditions for the canonical single-field inflation. The non-attractor stage can last only several $e$-folding numbers, and should be followed by hilltop inflation. This two-stage evolution…
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 propose a novel scenario of inflation, in which the inflaton is identified as the lightest mode of an angular field in a compactified fifth dimension. The periodic effective potential exhibits exponentially flat plateaus, so that a…
We describe a simple mechanism that can lead to 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…
The detection of a primordial stochastic gravitational wave background has the potential to reveal unprecedented insights into the early universe, and possibly into the dynamics of inflation. Generically, UV-complete inflationary models…
We study a gravitational model with curvature-squared $R^2$ and curvature-quartic $R^4$ nonlinearities. The effective scalar degree of freedom $\phi$ (scalaron) has a multi-valued potential $U(\phi)$ consisting of a number of branches.…
We compute the distribution of minima that are reached dynamically on multi-field axionic landscapes, both numerically and analytically. Such landscapes are well suited for inflationary model building due to the presence of shift symmetries…
We propose a landscape of many axions, where the axion potential receives various contributions from shift symmetry breaking effects. We show that the existence of the axion with a super-Planckian decay constant is very common in the axion…
A model is developed in which the inflaton potential experiences a sudden small change in its second derivative (the effective mass of the inflaton). An exact treatment demonstrates that the resulting density perturbation has a quasi-flat…
Multi-field inflation with a curved scalar geometry has been found to support background trajectories that violate the slow-roll, slow-turn conditions and thus have the potential to evade the swampland constraints. In order to understand…
We explore some issues in slow roll inflation in situations where field excursions are small compared to $M_p$. We argue that for small field inflation, minimizing fine tuning requires low energy supersymmetry and a tightly constrained…
Stochastic inflation is widely used as a framework to study scalar field perturbations on an inflationary spacetime in a classical manner. In Starobinsky's seminal work and most of the subsequent literature, stochastic inflation is driven…
In single field slow-roll inflation, one expects that the spectral index $n_s -1$ is first order in slow-roll parameters. Similarly, its running $\alpha_s = dn_s/d \log k$ and the running of the running $\beta_s = d\alpha_s/d \log k$ are…
Many models of high energy physics possess metastable vacua. It is conceivable that the universe can get trapped in such a false vacuum, irrespective of its origin and prior history, at an earlier stage during its evolution. The ensuing…
Within the framework of geometric inflation, where the Friedmann equation is modified to incorporate an infinite series of higher curvature corrections, we describe the emergence of a de Sitter inflationary phase near the poles of an…
We study models of modular inflation of the form expected to arise from low energy effective actions of superstring theories. We argue on general grounds that the most likely models of modular slow-roll inflation are small field models in…
A method of calculating the vacuum effective action for massive quantum fields in curved space-time is outlined. Our approach is based on the conformal representation of the fields action and on the integration of the corresponding…
The refined de Sitter derivative conjecture provides constraints to potentials that are low energy effective theories of quantum gravity. It can give direct bounds on inflationary scenarios and determine whether the theory is in the…
We adopt methods from statistical field theory to stochastic inflation. For the example of a free test field in de Sitter and power-law inflation, the power spectrum of long-wavelength fluctuations is computed. We study its dependence on…