Related papers: Axion Inflation and Affleck-Dine Baryogenesis
Affleck-Dine baryogenesis is preconditioned on a certain structure of non-renormalizable operators in the Kahler potential. In this paper, we geometrically characterize the resulting constraint on the field space Kahler geometry and survey…
It is usually assumed that the order H^2 corrections to the SUSY-breaking mass squared terms in the early Universe must be negative in order to allow the Affleck-Dine mechanism to work. We reconsider this assumption in the context of D-term…
String theory models of axion monodromy inflation exhibit scalar potentials which are quadratic for small values of the inflaton field and evolve to a more complicated function for large field values. Oftentimes the large field behaviour is…
Because the inflationary mechanism is extremely sensitive to UV-physics, the construction of theoretically robust models of inflation provides a unique window on Planck-scale physics. We review efforts to use an axion with a shift symmetry…
The baryon asymmetry of the Universe should have been produced after the inflation era. We consider the possibility that the asymmetry is generated by the flavor oscillations in the reheating process after inflation, so that the baryon…
We show that the cosmological abundance of string axions is much smaller than naive estimates if the Hubble scale of inflation, $H_{\rm inf}$, is sufficiently low (but can still be much higher than the axion masses) and if the inflation…
This paper is based on a talk in which I discussed how a component of the dynamical affine connection, that is independent of the metric, can drive inflation in agreement with observations. This provides a geometrical origin for the…
We present a new model of large field inflation along a winding trajectory in the field space of two axionic fields, where the 'axions' originate from the complex structure moduli sector of a Calabi-Yau 3-fold at large complex structure.…
String theory posesses numerous axion candidates. The recent realization that the compactification radius in string theory might be large means that these states can solve the strong CP problem. This still leaves the question of the…
We consider the construction of inverted hybrid inflation models in which the vacuum energy during inflation is at the TeV scale, and the inflaton couples to the Higgs field. Such models are of interest in the context of some recently…
The pressureless tachyonic matter recently found in superstring field theory has an over-abundance problem in cosmology. We argue that this problem is naturally solved in the brane inflationary scenario if almost all of the tachyon energy…
It is known that Yang-Mills theories, especially in the large-$N$ limit, exhibit a $\theta$-vacuum structure with a multi-branched vacuum energy. In this work, we demonstrate that this multi-branch structure can play a crucial role in axion…
We discuss the role of torsion in string theory on inducing pseudoscalar degrees of freedom (axions), which in turn couple to (gravitational) Chern-Simons (CS) anomalous terms. Such interactions can induce inflation, of running vacuum type,…
The motivation for studying the rolling tachyon and non-commutative inflation comes from string theory. In the tachyon inflation scenario, metric perturbations are created by tachyon field fluctuations during inflation. We drive the exact…
It is quite well known for some time that string inspired axionic terms of the form $\nu (\phi)\tilde{R}R$, known also as Chern-Simons terms, do not affect the scalar perturbations and the background evolution for a flat…
In addition to spectacular signatures such as black hole superradiance and the rotation of CMB polarization, the plenitude of axions appearing in the string axiverse may have potentially dangerous implications. An example is the…
It is assumed in standard cosmology that the Universe underwent a period of inflation in its earliest phase, providing the seeds for structure formation through vacuum fluctuations of the inflaton scalar field. These fluctuations get…
We give a generic argument that string theory provides a natural setting for warm inflationary cosmology. We then explore a specific model with an inflaton modulus field coupled to fields that provide the continuous dissipation needed for…
We study the onset of the reheating epoch at the end of axion-driven inflation where the axion is coupled to an Abelian, $U(1)$, gauge field via a Chern-Simons interaction term. We focus primarily on $m^2\phi^2$ inflation and explore the…
Possible effects due to nonequilibrium dynamics in the Affleck-Dine mechanism of baryogenesis are examined. Using the closed-time-path formalism, the quantum fluctuation and the back reaction of the Affleck-Dine scalar field are…