Related papers: Coherent Inflation for Large Quantum Superposition…
Inflation solves several cosmological problems at the classical and quantum level, with a strong agreement between the theoretical predictions of well-motivated inflationary models and observations. In this work, we study the corrections…
Cosmic inflation is arguably the most favoured paradigm of the very early Universe. It postulates an early phase of fast, nearly exponential, and accelerated expansion. Inflationary models are capable of explaining the overall flatness and…
Since this is a meeting on inflation the title of this talk should probably have been ``The cosmos as a lab for inflation''. I will illustrate how, by combining WMAP observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) with smaller scales…
We present a model for quintessential inflation using a string modulus for the inflaton - quintessence field. The scalar potential of our model is based on generic non-perturbative potentials arising in flux compactifications. We assume an…
Starting from Einstein-Yang-Mills in higher dimensions with an instanton on a compact sphere, we dimensionally reduce to find an effective four-dimensional action describing "hilltop" inflation. Using recent CMB data, we analyse the…
We compute numerically the reheating temperature due to the gravitational production of conformally coupled superheavy particles during the phase transition from the end of inflation to the beginning of kination in two different…
Macroscopic quantum superpositions are widely believed to be unobservable because large systems cannot be perfectly isolated from their environments. Here, we show that even under perfect isolation, intrinsic unitary dynamics with the…
We investigate the quantum cosmological tunneling scenario for inflationary models. Within a path-integral approach, we derive the corresponding tunneling probability distribution. A sharp peak in this distribution can be interpreted as the…
We propose a new framework for multi-field inflation in which a nearly constant potential energy is maintained during inflation before decreasing rapidly, in a manner analogous to a classical top spinning upright for a long time before…
We study the process whereby quantum cosmological perturbations become classical within inflationary cosmology. By setting up a master-equation formulation we show how quantum coherence for super-Hubble modes can be destroyed by their…
We study the dynamics and observational predictions of warm inflation within a supersymmetric distributed mass model. This dissipative mechanism is well described by the interactions between the inflaton and a tower of chiral multiplets…
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.…
Recently it has become clear that the resonant amplification of quantum field fluctuations at preheating must be accompanied by resonant amplification of scalar metric perturbations, since the two are united by Einstein's equations.…
We suggest a new conceptual frame where inflationary Cosmology is quantum mechanically described using the Hilbert space representation of the crossed product of the type $III$ factor associated with the algebra of local operators on the de…
We study the back-reaction of moduli fields on the inflaton potential in generic models of F-term inflation. We derive the moduli corrections as a power series in the ratio of Hubble scale and modulus mass. The general result is illustrated…
An extension of the Standard Model with three right-handed neutrinos and a simple invisible axion model can account for all experimentally confirmed signals of new physics (neutrino oscillations, dark matter and baryon asymmetry) in…
Quantum mechanics predicts that massive particles exhibit wave-like behavior. Matterwave interferometry has been able to validate such predictions through ground-breaking experiments involving microscopic systems like atoms and molecules.…
We investigate the quintessential inflation in the logarithmic Cartan $F(R)$ gravity. A small logarithmic modification of the general relativity has the potential to introduce both inflation and dark energy. We evaluate the time evolution…
We calculate the reduced density matrix for the inflaton field in a model of chaotic inflation by tracing out degrees of freedom corresponding to various bosonic fields. We find a qualitatively new contribution to the density matrix given…
On compactification from higher dimensions, a single free massive scalar field gives rise to a set of effective four-dimensional scalar fields, each with a different mass. These can cooperate to drive a period of inflation known as assisted…