Related papers: Lowering the self-coupling of the scalar field in …
Multifield models of inflation with nonminimal couplings are in excellent agreement with the recent results from {\it Planck}. Across a broad range of couplings and initial conditions, such models evolve along an effectively single-field…
We study the hybrid inflationary potential in a regime where the defect field is light, and more than 60 e-folds of accelerated expansion occur after the symmetry breaking transition. Using analytic and numerical techniques, we then…
The dynamics of both the preinflationary and the preheating epochs for a model consisting of a Higgs inflaton plus an additional auxiliary field are studied in full General Relativity. The minimally coupled auxiliary field allows for…
We investigate the models of cosmological inflation in generalized scalar-tensor gravity, which we consider as a source of deviation from de Sitter dynamics in the case of GR. Within the framework of the proposed approach, the exact…
We revisit perturbative unitarity in scalar field inflation with a nonminimal coupling, with Higgs inflation serving as the most prominent example. Although such models are phenomenologically successful, it is critical to examine whether or…
We study inflation with the non-minimally coupled Standard Model Higgs in the case when quantum corrections generate a hilltop in the potential. We consider both the metric and the Palatini formulation of general relativity. We investigate…
We study inflationary scenarios driven by a scalar field in the presence of a non-minimal coupling between matter and curvature. We show that the Friedmann equation can be significantly modified when the energy density during inflation…
We derive a Higgs inflationary model in the context of holographic cosmology, where we consider a universe filled with a Higgs field non-minimally coupled to gravity in a slow-roll regime. The amplitude of density (scalar) perturbations is…
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…
The predictions of standard Higgs inflation in the framework of the metric formalism yield a tensor-to-scalar ratio $r \sim 10^{-3}$ which lies well within the expected accuracy of near-future experiments $ \sim 10^{-4}$. When the Palatini…
Realistic models of high-energy physics include multiple scalar fields. Renormalization requires that the fields have nonminimal couplings to the spacetime Ricci curvature scalar, and the couplings can be large at the energy scales of…
This thesis presents a possible inflation scenario as a consequence of non-minimal gravitational couplings in the Conformal Standard Model. That model consists, in comparison to the SM, of additional right-chiral neutrinos and a complex…
Extrapolating the Standard Model Higgs potential at high energies, we study the barrier between the electroweak and Planck scale minima. The barrier arises by taking the central values of the relevant experimental inputs, that is the strong…
Non-Gaussianity of the primordial density perturbations provides an important measure to constrain models of inflation. At cubic order the non-Gaussianity is captured by two parameters $\tau_{\rm NL}$ and $g_{\rm NL}$ that determine the…
We demonstrate that in the presence of a light scalar spectator field, vacuum transitions taking place during inflation can produce large, potentially detectable non-Gaussian signatures in the primordial curvature perturbation. Such…
The non-Gaussianity of inflationary perturbations, as encoded in the bispectrum (or 3-point correlator), has become an important additional way of distinguishing between inflation models, going beyond the linear Gaussian perturbation…
We perform a general study of the primordial scalar non-Gaussianities in multi-field inflationary models in Einstein gravity. We consider models governed by a Lagrangian which is a general function of the scalar fields and their first…
We consider scalar field inflation in the Palatini formulation of general relativity. The covariant derivative of the metric is then non-zero. From the effective theory point of view it should couple to other fields. We write down the most…
We consider inflation in a universe with a positive cosmological constant and a nonminimally coupled scalar field, in which the field couples both quadratically and quartically to the Ricci scalar. When considered in the Einstein frame and…
The accelerated expansion of the early universe is an integral part of modern cosmology and dynamically realized by the mechanism of inflation. The simplest theoretical description of the inflationary paradigm is based on the assumption of…