Related papers: Solid Consistency
Low energy effective field theories motivated by string theory will likely contain several scalar moduli fields which will be relevant to early Universe cosmology. Some of these fields are expected to couple with non-standard kinetic terms…
In D-term inflation models, the fluctuations of squark fields in the flat directions give rise to isocurvature density fluctuations stored in the Affleck-Dine condensate. After the condensate breaks up in B-balls, these can be perturbations…
We calculate the power spectrum of adiabatic density perturbations in an open inflationary model in which inflation occurs in two stages. First an epoch of old inflation creates a large, smooth universe, solving the horizon and homogeneity…
In the Einstein frame picture of Starobinky's $R^2$ inflation model, cosmic inflation is driven by a slowly rolling inflaton field, called scalaron, and followed by a coherently oscillating scalaron phase. Since the scalaron oscillates…
A model of cosmological inflation is proposed in which field space is a hyperbolic plane. The inflaton never slow-rolls, and instead orbits the bottom of the potential, buoyed by a centrifugal force. Though initial velocities redshift away…
We discuss and clarify the validity of effective single field theories of inflation obtained by integrating out heavy degrees of freedom in the regime where adiabatic perturbations propagate with a suppressed speed of sound. We show by…
We show that, in warm inflation, the nearly constant Hubble rate and temperature lead to an adiabatic evolution of the number density of particles interacting with the thermal bath, even if thermal equilibrium cannot be maintained. In this…
We discuss the possible role of isocurvature perturbations for the quantum decoherence of the curvature perturbation during inflation. We point out that if the inflaton trajectory in field space is curved, the adiabatic mode is generically…
Structure formation models with a cosmological constant are successful in explaining large-scale structure data, but are threatened by the magnitude-redshift relation for Type Ia supernovae. This has led to discussion of models where the…
We consider a supersymmetric grand unified model which leads to hybrid inflation and solves the strong CP and mu problems via a Peccei-Quinn symmetry, with the Peccei-Quinn field acting as a curvaton generating together with the inflaton…
One of the firm predictions of the single-scalar field inflationary cosmology is the consistency relation between the scalar and tensor perturbations. It has been argued that such a relation, if observationally verified, would offer strong…
The inflation-inspired flat, cold dark matter-dominated models of structure formation with adiabatic, nearly scale-invariant initial conditions agree very well with current CMB anisotropy data. The success of these models is highlighted by…
We consider supersymmetric inflation with the hybrid-type potential. In the absence of the symmetry that forbids Hubble-induced mass terms, the inflaton mass will be as large as the Hubble scale during inflation. We consider gravitational…
Recent years have seen the introduction of various multi-field inflationary scenarios in which the curvature and geodesics of the scalar manifold play a crucial role. We outline a simple description that unifies these different proposals…
We analyze the evolution of the perturbations in the inflaton field and metric following the end of inflation. We present accurate analytic approximations for the perturbations, showing that the coherent oscillations of the…
We propose new classes of inflation models based on the modular symmetry, where the modulus field $\tau$ serves as the inflaton. We establish a connection between modular inflation and modular stabilization, wherein the modulus field rolls…
We initiate the study of multi-field inflation using holography. Bulk light scalar fields correspond to nearly marginal operators in the boundary theory and the dual quantum field theory is a deformation of a CFT by such operators. We…
In the separate universe approach, an inhomogeneous universe is rephrased as a set of glued numerous homogeneous local patches. This is the essence of the gradient expansion and the $\delta N$ formalism, which have been widely used in…
This PhD thesis presents a study of the effect and generation of non-adiabatic perturbations in Cosmology. We study adiabatic (curvature) and entropy (isocurvature) perturbations produced during a period of cosmological inflation that is…
The diabatic approach to collective nuclear motion is reformulated in the local-density approximation in order to treat the normal modes of a spherical nuclear droplet analytically. In a first application the adiabatic isoscalar modes are…