Related papers: Inflationary vs. Reionization Features from Planck…
It has been suggested that the effects of renormalization significantly reduce the amplitude of the inflationary spectra at scales measurable in the cosmic microwave background. Via a gauge-invariant analysis, we compute the renormalized…
The current available CMB data show an anomalously low value of the CMB temperature fluctuations at large angular scales (l < 40). This lack of power is not explained by the minimal LCDM model, and one of the possible mechanisms explored in…
A class of inflationary models that involve rapid bursts of particle productions predict observational signatures, such as bump-like features in the primordial scalar power spectrum. In this work, we analyze such models by comparing their…
We present a new investigation of the thermal history of the intergalactic medium (IGM) during and after reionization using the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest flux power spectrum at $4.0\lesssim z\lesssim5.2$. Using a sample of 15 high-resolution…
A generic non-minimal coupling can push any higher-order terms of the scalar potential sufficiently far out in field space to yield observationally viable plateau inflation. We provide analytic and numerical evidence that this generically…
It is shown that multi M5-brane inflation in heterotic M-theory gives rise to a detectable gravitational wave power spectrum with tensor fraction $r$ typically larger than the projected experimental sensitivity, $r_{exp} = 0.01$. A…
Is there new physics hidden in the four-point function of the cosmic microwave background (CMB)? We conduct a detailed analysis of the Planck PR4 temperature and polarization trispectrum for $\ell\in[2,2048]$. Using the theoretical and…
We investigate the phenomenology of warm inflation and present generic results about the evolution of the inflaton and radiation fields. The general conditions required for warm inflation to take place are derived and discussed. A…
We determine the power spectrum for inflation models covering all regimes from cold (isentropic) to warm (nonisentropic) inflation. We work in the context of the stochastic inflation approach, which can nicely describe both types of…
Among primordial magnetogenesis models, inflation is a prime candidate to explain the current existence of cosmological magnetic fields. Assuming conformal invariance to be restored after inflation, their energy density decreases as…
We update the search for features in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) power spectrum due to transient reductions in the speed of sound, using Planck 2015 CMB temperature and polarisation data. We enlarge the parameter space to much…
In this work, we revisit the Witten-O'Raifeartaigh model of inflation, in which the potential takes a $\operatorname{log}^2(\phi/M)$ form, when the scalar field is non-minimally coupled to gravity. We investigate the impact of the coupling…
By using the cubic spline interpolation method, we reconstruct the shape of the primordial scalar and tensor power spectra from the recently released {\it Planck} temperature and BICEP2 polarization cosmic microwave background data. We find…
We explore the inflationary evolution and observational viability of the $\alpha$-attractor E-model in the framework of warm inflation, focusing on both weak and strong dissipative regimes, with a dissipation coefficient linear in…
A possible origin of the anomalous dip and bump in the primordial power spectrum, which are reconstructed from WMAP data corresponding to the multipole $\ell=100\sim 140$ by using the inversion method, is investigated as a consequence of…
We evaluate the large scale polarization of the cosmic microwave background induced, via Thomson scattering prior to decoupling, by nearly scale-invariant spectra of scalar and tensor metric perturbations, such as those predicted by most…
For the simplest inflation models, the recent detection of a large primordial B-mode polarization signal by the BICEP2 experiment indicates a slight tension with the upper limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r$, from the Planck satellite.…
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…
We consider a phenomenological model of inflation where the inflaton is the phase of a complex scalar field $\Phi$. Planck-suppressed operators of $\mathcal O(f^5/M_\mathrm{pl})$ modify the geometry of the vev $\langle \Phi \rangle$ at…
Recent results from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), when combined with Planck and DESI datasets, indicate a scalar spectral index $n_s$ larger than that reported in the Planck 2018 baseline, thereby challenging conventional…