Related papers: Observable Chiral Gravitational Waves from Inflati…
Sourced gravitational waves in chromonatural inflation (CNI) can give rise to a chiral spectrum of tensor fluctuations that is considerably enhanced relative to the vacuum fluctuations. If the field content of CNI acts purely as a spectator…
The majority of models of inflation in string theory predict an absence of measurable gravitational waves, r << 10^{-3}. The most promising proposals for making string theoretic models that yield measurable tensor fluctuations involve axion…
We introduce a simple string model of inflation, in which the inflaton field can take trans-Planckian values while driving a period of slow-roll inflation. This leads naturally to a realisation of large field inflation, inasmuch as the…
Inspired by the chromo-natural inflation model of Adshead&Wyman, we reshape its scalar content to relax the tension with current observational bounds. Besides an inflaton, the setup includes a spectator sector in which an axion and SU(2)…
We study the inflationary gravitational wave background induced by Abelian gauge fields generated by non-minimal kinetic and axial couplings to the inflaton. We show that, up to slow-roll corrections, for coupling functions that share the…
The original axion natural inflation model predicts a tensor-to-scalar ratio exceeding experimental limits. Conversely, in aligned axion inflation, inflation can proceed along trajectories emerging from near a saddle point of the two-field…
We propose a novel mechanism for gravitational wave (GW) production sourced by spectator scalar fields during inflation. These fields, while not driving cosmic expansion, generate blue-tilted isocurvature fluctuations that naturally satisfy…
Inflation generates gravitational waves, which may be observable in the low multipoles of the cosmic microwave background (cmb) anisotropy but only if the inflaton field variation is at least of order the Planck scale. Such a large…
The motion of a pseudo-scalar field $X$ during inflation naturally induces a significant amplification of the gauge fields to which it is coupled. The amplified gauge fields can source characteristic scalar and tensor primordial…
We study the possibility that particle production during inflation could source observable gravity waves on scales relevant for Cosmic Microwave Background experiments. A crucial constraint on such scenarios arises because particle…
We analyze string-theoretic large-field inflation in the regime of spontaneously-broken supergravity with conventional moduli stabilization by fluxes and non-perturbative effects. The main ingredient is a shift-symmetric Kahler potential,…
We study a single field axion inflation model in the presence of an SU(2) gauge field with a small vev. In order to make the analysis as model-independent as possible, we consider an arbitrary potential for the axion that is able to support…
We investigate the spectrum of gravitational waves arising from primordial inflation in the presence of a string-theoretical higher curvature correction, specifically, the Gauss-Bonnet coupling term for the inflaton (modulus) field. We show…
In string theory inspired models of axion-like fields, sub-leading non-perturbative effects, if sufficiently large, can introduce steep cliffs and gentle plateaus onto the underlying scalar potential. During inflation, the motion of a…
We investigate the viability of inflation with a spectator sector comprised of non-Abelian gauge fields coupled through a higher order operator. We dub this model "spectator Gauge-flation". We study the predictions for the amplitude and…
We discuss the gravitational waves (GW) in the context of vector inflation. We derive the action for tensor perturbations and find that tachyonic instabilities are present in most (but not all) of the inflationary models with large fields.…
Models of inflation involving non-Abelian gauge field backgrounds can produce gravitational waves at an observable level with a preferred handedness. This asymmetry comes about because the non-Abelian background generates parity-violation…
We show that inflation in type IIB string theory driven by the volume modulus can be realized in the context of the racetrack-based Kallosh-Linde model (KL) of moduli stabilization. Inflation here arises through the volume modulus…
Motivated by the 4d effective field theories for closed string axions in Type II string compactifications with D-branes, we consider chiral gauge theories coupled to multiple axions. We discuss how well-known non-perturbative dynamical…
This is a short review of string cosmology. We wish to connect string-scale physics as closely as possible to observables accessible to current or near-future experiments. Our possible best hope to do so is a description of inflation in…