Related papers: Mimicking alternatives to inflation with interacti…
We present a model of inflation where the inflaton is accommodated as a phantom field which exhibits an initial transient pole behavior and then decays into a quintessence field which is responsible for a radiation era. We must stress that…
We carry out numerical investigations of the dynamics and perturbations in the Nflation model of Dimopoulos et al. (2005). This model features large numbers of scalar fields with different masses, which can cooperate to drive inflation…
The spectrum of curvature perturbation generated during inflation is studied in the case the inflation-driving scalar field (inflaton) $\phi$ crosses over its potential extremum. It is shown that the nondecaying mode of perturbation has a…
A naive computation of the correlation functions of fluctuations generated during inflation suffers from logarithmic divergences in the infrared (IR) limit. In this paper, we propose one way to solve this IR divergence problem in the…
We study nonlinear cosmological perturbations and their possible non-Gaussian character in an extended non-minimal inflation where gravity is coupled non-minimally to both the scalar field and its derivatives. By expansion of the action up…
Any one-field inflation is actually realized in a multifield configuration because the inflaton must have couplings with other fields to reheat the universe and is coupled to all other fields at least gravitationally. In all single inflaton…
I discuss a mechanism that renders the spectral index of the primordial spectrum and the inflationary stage independent of each other. If a scalar field acquires an appropriate time-dependent mass, it is possible to generate an adiabatic,…
If cosmic inflation suffered tiny time-dependent deviations from the slow-roll regime, these would induce the existence of small scale-dependent features imprinted in the primordial spectra, with their shapes and sizes revealing information…
The spectrum of primordial gravitational waves is one of the most robust inflationary observables, often thought of as a direct probe of the energy scale of inflation. We present a simple model, where the dynamics controlling this…
Oscillons are massive, long-lived, localized excitations of a scalar field. We show that in a large class of well-motivated single-field models, inflation is followed by self-resonance, leading to copious oscillon generation and a lengthy…
We draw attention to the possibility that inflation (i.e. accelerated expansion) might continue after the end of slow roll, during a period of fast oscillations of the inflaton field \phi . This phenomenon takes place when a mild…
We propose a new mechanism to generate primordial curvature perturbations, based on the resonant production of particles during inflation. It is known that this phenomenon can trap the inflaton for a fraction of e-fold. This effect is…
We construct explicit models of classical primordial standard clocks in an alternative to inflation, namely the slowly contracting ekpyrotic scenario. We study the phenomenology of massive spectator fields added to a state-of-the-art…
We study a variant of the Chromo-Natural Inflation (CNI) mechanism in which the inflaton interacts only gravitationally with the CNI fields. Integrating out all the non-dynamical scalar fields of the model results in a coupling between the…
We consider small-field models which invoke the usual framework for the effective field theory, and large-field models which go beyond that. Present and future possibilities for discriminating between the models are assessed, on the…
We investigate the dynamics of the recently proposed model of assisted inflation. In this model an arbitrary number of scalar fields with exponential potentials evolve towards an inflationary scaling solution, even if each of the individual…
We consider a self-interacting scalar field in a de Sitter background and deal with the associated infrared divergences in a purely diagrammatic way using the in-in formalism. In the particular case of a large N O(N) invariant scalar field…
One of the simplest possible candidates for dark matter is a stable scalar singlet beyond the Standard Model. If its mass is below the Hubble scale during inflation, long-wavelength modes of this scalar will be excited during inflation, and…
We consider inflation in the system containing a Ricci scalar squared term and a canonical scalar field with quadratic mass term. In the Einstein frame this model takes the form of a two-field inflation model with a curved field space, and…
A model is developed in which the inflaton potential experiences a sudden small change in its second derivative (the effective mass of the inflaton). An exact treatment demonstrates that the resulting density perturbation has a quasi-flat…