Related papers: Inhomogeneous Initial Data and Small-Field Inflati…
In the primordial universe, fields with mass much larger than the mass-scale of the event-horizon (such as the Hubble parameter in inflation) exist ubiquitously, and can be excited from time to time and oscillate quickly around their…
Models of cosmic inflation suggest that our universe underwent an early phase of accelerated expansion, driven by the dynamics of one or more scalar fields. Inflationary models make specific, quantitative predictions for several observable…
We present two families of multi-field potentials that support inflation while satisfying the refined de Sitter and the distance swampland conjectures. Both families feature Planck-compatible phenomenology. The first is a helix-type…
We compute the rate with which super-Hubble cosmological fluctuations are decohered during inflation, by their gravitational interactions with unobserved shorter-wavelength scalar and tensor modes. We do so using Open Effective Field Theory…
We examine the role of using symmetry and effective field theory in inflationary model building. We describe the standard formulation of starting with an approximate shift symmetry for a scalar field, and then introducing corrections…
We address the issue of fine-tuning of the initial field configuration that can lead to hybrid inflation in the context of global supersymmetry. This problem is generated by the difference between the energy scale at which the Universe…
It is well known that large Hubble-induced supergravity corrections to the inflaton field can ruin the flatness of the potential, thus creating a tension between slow-roll inflation and supergravity. In this paper we show that it is…
We investigate if the observed small and nearly scale-invariant primordial cosmic perturbation, i.e. the perturbation amplitude $P_\zeta\sim10^{-9}$ and the spectral index $n_s \simeq 0.965$, is typical in the landscape of vacua after…
Light scalar fields present during inflation can lead to interesting observable signatures, especially in models with non-equilibrium reheating dynamics. We study a supersymmetric hybrid inflation model with a third scalar whose lightness…
Two extensions of ideas lying in the basis of the inflationary scenario of the early Universe and their effect on the large scale structure of the present-day Universe are discussed. The first of them is the possibility of fast phase…
Inflation with an inflection point potential is a popular model for producing primordial black holes. The potential near the inflection point is approximately flat, with a local maximum next to a local minimum, prone to eternal inflation.…
Generically, the gravitational-wave or tensor-mode contribution to the primordial curvature spectrum of inflation is tiny if the field-range of the inflaton is much smaller than the Planck scale. We show that this pessimistic conclusion is…
Warm inflationary dynamics is shown to satisfy both the slow-roll and density perturbation constraints for $m_{\phi} \gg H$ or equivalently $\eta \gg 1$ and for inflaton field amplitudes much below the Planck scale, $<\phi > < m_{pl}$. I…
We review the main aspects of the warm inflation scenario, focusing on the inflationary dynamics and the predictions related to the primordial spectrum of perturbations, to be compared with the recent cosmological observations. We study in…
Simple monomial inflationary scenarios have been ruled out by recent observations. In this work we revisit the next simplest scenario, a single--field model where the scalar potential is a polynomial of degree four which features a concave…
For simple inflationary models, we provide a consistent and complete scheme by which the macro-physical details of early universe inflation may be determined explicitly from the underlying micro-physical theory. We examine inflationary…
We show that there are inflationary models for which perturbations in the energy momentum tensor, which are of second order in the scalar field, cannot be neglected. We first specify the conditions under which the usual first order…
We consider the question of deriving initial conditions for scalar fields in driving both an early and late quintessence phase. The dark energy field presents an unresolved uniformity problem. Further difficulties with initial conditions…
Recently, it has been claimed that inflationary models with an inflection point in the scalar potential can produce a large resonance in the power spectrum of curvature perturbation. In this paper however we show that the previous analyses…
The single scalar field inflationary models that lead to scalar and tensor perturbation spectra with amplitudes varying in direct proportion to one another are reconstructed by solving the Stewart-Lyth inverse problem to next-to-leading…