Related papers: Axion excursions of the landscape during inflation
The string axiverse predicts a unique connection between the high scales approachable only through theory and the low energies within reach of experimental verification: a multitude of light, feebly interacting axions. In order to capture…
We study nonlinear cosmological perturbations and their possible non-Gaussian character in an extended non-minimal inflation where gravity is coupled non-minimally to both the scalar field and its derivatives. By expansion of the action up…
We provide a systematic framework for theories of multiple axions. We discover a novel type of "alignment" that renders even very complex theories analytically tractable. Theories with about 100 axions and random parameters have an…
We propose a method to extract predictions from quantum cosmology for inflation that can be confronted with observations. Employing the tunneling boundary condition in quantum geometrodynamics, we derive a probability distribution for the…
Large field inflation is arguably the simplest and most natural variant of slow-roll inflation. Axion monodromy may be the most promising framework for realising this scenario. As one of its defining features, the long-range polynomial…
Gauge-flation, non-Abelian gauge field inflation, which was introduced in arXiv:1102.1513 and analyzed more thoroughly in arXiv:1102.1932, is a model of inflation driven by non-Abelian gauge fields minimally coupled to Einstein gravity. In…
We propose a new mechanism to generate density perturbations in inflationary models. Spatial fluctuations in the decay rate of the inflaton field to ordinary matter lead to fluctuations in the reheating temperature. We argue that in most…
A remarkable prediction of the Standard Model is that, in the absence of corrections lifting the energy density, the Higgs potential becomes negative at large field values. If the Higgs field samples this part of the potential during…
In the past decade, the importance of dissipation and fluctuation to inflationary dynamics has been realized and has led to a new picture of inflation called warm inflation. Although these phenomena are common to condensed matter systems,…
We investigate the axion inflation model derived by poly-instanton effects in type II superstring theories. Poly-instanton effects are instanton effects corrected by another instanton and it can generate the modulus-axion potential with the…
We present global fits of cosmologically stable axion-like particle and QCD axion models in the mass range 0.1 neV to 10 eV. We focus on the case where the Peccei-Quinn symmetry is broken before the end of inflation, such that the initial…
We investigate the backreaction of the quantum fluctuations of a very light ($m \!\lesssim\! H_{\text{today}}$) nonminimally coupled spectator scalar field on the expansion dynamics of the Universe. The one-loop expectation value of the…
Recent measurements of the galaxy 4-Point Correlation Function (4PCF) have seemingly detected non-zero parity-odd modes at high significance. Since gravity, the primary driver of galaxy formation and evolution is parity-even, any parity…
Nowadays cosmological inflation is the most accepted mechanism to explain the primordial seeds that led to the structure formation observed in the Universe. Current observations are in well agreement to initial adiabatic conditions, which…
Primordial non-Gaussianity generated by additional fields during inflation offers a compelling observational target. Heavy fields imprint characteristic oscillatory signals in non-Gaussian correlation functions of the inflaton, a process…
Axion-like particles (ALPs) might constitute the totality of the cold dark matter (CDM) observed. The parameter space of ALPs depends on the mass of the particle $m$ and on the energy scale of inflation $H_I$ , the latter being bound by the…
We study parity violation in the early universe by examining the four-point correlation function within the axion inflation model. Using an open quantum system formalism from our previous work, we calculate the influence functional to…
In this talk, I review briefly a scenario for the evolution of a string-inspired cosmological model, in which condensates of primordial gravitational waves (GW), formed at the very early eras after the Big Bang, are considered responsible…
We study the axion monodromy inflation with a non-perturbatively generated sinusoidal term. The potential form is a mixture between the natural inflation and the axion monodromy inflation potentials. The sinusoidal term is subdominant in…
In Chain Inflation the universe tunnels along a series of false vacua of ever-decreasing energy. The main goal of this paper is to embed Chain Inflation in high energy fundamental physics. We begin by illustrating a simple effective…