Related papers: Strong Dynamics and Natural Inflation

Particle production in strong electromagnetic fields is a recurring theme in solid state physics, heavy ion collisions, early universe cosmology and formal quantum field theory. In this paper we discuss the Dirac equation in a background of…

We study the consistency of large-field inflation in low-energy effective field theories of string theory. In particular, we focus on the stability of K\"ahler moduli in the particularly interesting case where the non-perturbative…

We consider the interactions between Dp-branes intersecting at an arbitrary number of angles in the context of type II string theory. For cosmology purposes we concentrate in the theory on R^{3,1} x T^6. Interpreting the distance between…

We clarify the structure of N=1 supergravity in 1+3 dimensions with constant FI terms. The FI terms induce non-vanishing R-charges for the fermions and the superpotential. Therefore the D-term inflation model in supergravity with constant…

We investigate whether explicit models of warped D-brane inflation are possible in string compactifications. To this end, we study the potential for D3-brane motion in a warped conifold that includes holomorphically-embedded D7-branes…

In scalar-tensor theories the scalar fields generically couple nontrivially to gravity. We study the observable properties of inflationary models with non-minimally coupled inflaton and Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) kinetic term. Within the…

We study the dynamics of axion-like fields in F-theory and suggest that they can serve as inflatons in models of natural inflation. The axions arise from harmonic three-forms on the F-theory compactification space and parameterize a complex…

In this thesis, consisting of two main parts, we study observational signatures of cosmic (super)strings in the context of D-brane inflation and properties of scalar perturbations on generic homogeneous inflating backgrounds. In the first…

We present a simple mechanism for obtaining large-field inflation, and hence a gravitational wave signature, from string theory compactified on twisted tori. For Nil manifolds, we obtain a leading inflationary potential proportional to…

Axion inflation entails a coupling of the inflaton field to gauge fields through the Chern-Simons term. This results in a strong gauge field production during inflation, which backreacts on the inflaton equation of motion. Here we show that…

We study inflation and reheating in a brane world model derived from Type IIA string theory. This particular setup is based on a model of string mediated supersymmetry breaking. The inflaton is one of the transverse scalars of a D4-brane…

One possibility for identifying the inflaton in the framework of string theory is that it is a $D$-brane modulus. This option involves a specific, non-canonical form of the kinetic energy -- the Dirac-Born-Infeld action. This note…

Fibre inflationary models are constructed in type-IIB string flux compactification. These models have been shown to be in agreement with the cosmological observations under appropriate choices of parameters, which originate from their…

We investigate whether cosmological inflation is possible in a class of flux compactifications of type IIA strings on rigid Calabi-Yau manifolds, when all perturbative string corrections are taken into account. We confine ourselves to the…

We study the motion of a D3 brane moving within a Type IIB string vacuum compactified to 4D on K3 x T_2/Z_2 in the presence of D7 and O7 planes. We work within the effective 4D supergravity describing how the mobile D3 interacts with the…

The Weak Gravity Conjecture, if valid, rules out simple models of Natural Inflation by restricting their axion decay constant to be sub-Planckian. We revisit stringy attempts to realise Natural Inflation, with a single open string axionic…

We consider a model of inflation in which the inflaton field is a rolling axion with a potential which is flat enough to support an intermediate phase of USR inflation. Because of the Chern-Simons interaction, one polarization of the gauge…

We investigate the process of the Schwinger effect by axial coupling in the natural single-field inflation model in two parts. First we consider the Schwinger effect when the conformal invariance of Maxwell action should be broken by axial…

We provide a pedagogical overview of inflation in string theory. Our theme is the sensitivity of inflation to Planck-scale physics, which we argue provides both the primary motivation and the central theoretical challenge for the subject.…

Higher-order alpha'-corrections are a generic feature of type IIB string compactifications. In KKLT-like models of moduli stabilization they provide a mechanism of breaking the no-scale structure of the volume modulus. We present a model of…