Related papers: Expectations for Inflationary Observables: Simple …
If the inflaton potential has multiple minima, as may be expected in, e.g., the string theory "landscape", inflation predicts a probability distribution for the cosmological parameters describing spatial curvature (Omega_tot), dark energy…
We offer a geometric interpretation of attractor theories with singular kinetic terms as a union of multiple canonical models. We demonstrate that different domains (separated by poles) can drastically differ in their phenomenology. We…
We investigate inflationary dynamics in the framework of the Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity. In the model under consideration, the inflaton field is non-minimally coupled to the Gauss-Bonnet curvature invariant, so that the latter appears to…
Warm inflation is extended from the canonical field to the noncanonical field with a general Lagrangian density having coupling form of kinetic and potential terms. We develop the motion equation of the noncanonical inflaton field, and…
One of the fundamental questions in inflation is how to characterize the structure of different types of models in the field theoretic landscape. Proposals in this direction include attempts to directly characterize the formal structure of…
A new model of inflation is described. An unusual form for the inflationary potential is obtained because the inflaton corresponds to a non-trivial path in the configuration space of the two real scalar fields of the model. The model…
We propose a multi-natural inflation model in which the single-field inflaton potential consists of two or more sinusoidal potentials that are comparable in size, but have different periodicity with a possible non-zero relative phase. The…
The model of Natural Inflation is examined in light of recent 3-year data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and shown to provide a good fit. The inflaton potential is naturally flat due to shift symmetries, and in the simplest…
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…
We study an inflationary scenario where thermal inflation is followed by fast-roll inflation. This is a rather generic possibility based on the effective potentials of spontaneous symmetry breaking in the context of particle physics models.…
We discuss the phenomenology of the minimal inflation scenario. We concentrate on two aspects: inflationary trajectories and particle production. Our findings can be summarized in two main results: first, that inflationary trayectories that…
A simple model for the reheating of the universe after inflation is studied in which an essentially inhomogeneous scalar field representing matter is coupled to an essentially homogeneous scalar inflaton field. Through this coupling, the…
Recently we identified a new class of (super)conformally invariant theories which allow inflation even if the scalar potential is very steep in terms of the original conformal variables. Observational predictions of a broad class of such…
We investigate the observational signatures of many-field inflation and present analytic expressions for the spectral index as a function of the prior. For a given prior we employ the central limit theorem and the horizon crossing…
Motivated by the possibility of inflation in the cosmic landscape, which may be approximated by a complicated potential, we study the density perturbations in multi-field inflation with a random potential. The random potential causes the…
We investigate cosmological consequences of an inflationary model which incorporates a generic seesaw extension (types I and II) of the Standard Model of Particle Physics. A non-minimal coupling between the inflaton field and the Ricci…
Usual inflation is realized with a slow rolling scalar field minimally coupled to gravity. In contrast, we consider dynamics of a scalar with a flat effective potential, conformally coupled to gravity. Surprisingly, it contains an attractor…
In inflationary scenarios with more than one scalar field, inflation may proceed even if each of the individual fields has a potential too steep for that field to sustain inflation on its own. We show that scalar fields with exponential…
We consider, in the context of a braneworld cosmology, the motion of the universe coupled to a four-form gauge field, with constant field strength, defined in higher dimensions. It is found, under rather general initial conditions, that in…
The conventional background solution for the evolution of a single canonical inflaton field performs admirably in extreme scenarios such as the slow-roll phase (where the slow-roll parameter is much less than one) and the deep reheating era…