Related papers: Hillclimbing inflation
Slow-roll inflation is a successful paradigm. However we find that even a small coupling of the inflaton to other light fields can dramatically alter the dynamics and predictions of inflation. As an example, the inflaton can generically…
We provide a detailed study of natural inflation with a periodic non-minimal coupling, which is a well-motivated inflationary model that admits an explicit UV completion. We demonstrate that this construction can satisfy the most recent…
Cosmological models with inflation and those with bounce have their own strengths and weaknesses. Here we construct a model in which a phase of bounce is followed by a viable inflationary phase. This incorporates several advantages of both…
In a ghost inflationary scenario, we study the observational consequences of a tilt in the potential of the ghost condensate. We show how the presence of a tilt tends to make contact between the natural predictions of ghost inflation and…
Warm inflation is an inflationary scenario in which a thermal bath coexists with the inflaton during inflation. This is unlike standard cold inflation in which the Universe is effectively devoid of particles during inflation. The thermal…
In the light of the new observational results we discuss the status of the exponential potentials driving inflation. We depart form the minimal scenario and study an inflaton kinetically coupled to the Einstein tensor. We find that in this…
In models of natural inflation, the inflaton is an axion-like particle. Unfortunately, axion potentials in UV-complete theories appear to be too steep to drive inflation. We show that, even for a steep potential, natural inflation can occur…
Using analytic expressions, we explore the parameter space for hilltop inflation models with a potential of the form $V_0\pm m^2\phi^2 -a\phi^p$. With the positive sign and p>2 this converts the original hybrid inflation model into a…
The oscillating inflation model recently proposed by Damour and Mukhanov is investigated with a non-minimal coupling. Numerical study confirms an inflationary behavior and the density perturbation is obtained. A successful inflation…
We propose a new class of inflationary attractors in metric-affine gravity. Such class features a non-minimal coupling $\tilde\xi \, \Omega(\phi)$ with the Holst invariant $\tilde{\cal R}$ and an inflaton potential proportional to…
Cosmic inflation is the cornerstone of modern cosmology. In particular, following the Planck mission reports presented in 2015 regarding cosmic microwave background (CMB), there is an increasing interest in searching for inflaton candidates…
In this paper we consider the $\alpha-$attractor model and study inflation under a non-slow-roll dynamics. More precisely, we follow the approach recently proposed by Gong and Sasaki \cite{Gong:2015ypa} by means of assuming…
There is strong evidence from cosmological data that the universe underwent an epoch of superluminal expansion called inflation. A satisfactory embedding of inflation in fundamental physics has been an outstanding problem at the interface…
The possibility to construct an inflationary scenario for renormalization-group improved potentials corresponding to the Higgs sector of finite gauge models is investigated. Taking into account quantum corrections to the…
The Higgs field is an attractive candidate for the inflaton because it is an observationally confirmed fundamental scalar field. Importantly, it can be modeled by the most general renormalizable scalar potential. However, if the classical…
A model of inflation is presented where the inflaton field is a complex scalar field coupled to a U(1) gauge field. Due to the axial symmetry of the potential, the inflation is driven by the radial direction while the angular field is…
Inflation is the currently accepted paradigm for the beginnings of the Universe. To explain the observed almost scale invariant spectrum of density perturbations with only a slight spectral tilt, inflation must have been "slow roll", that…
We study models of inflation where the scalar field $\phi$ that drives inflation is coupled non-minimally to gravity via $\xi \phi^2 R$, or where the gravity sector is enlarged by an $R^2$ term. We consider the original Higgs inflation,…
Nonminimal coupling of the inflaton field to the Ricci curvature of spacetime is generally unavoidable, and the paradigm of inflation should be generalized by including the corresponding term in the Lagrangian of the inflationary theory.…
We study inflation in the $\alpha-$attractor model under a non-slow-roll dynamics with an ansatz proposed by Gong \& Sasaki \cite{Gong:2015ypa} of assuming $N=N\left(\phi\right)$. Under this approach, we construct a class of local shapes of…