Related papers: Inflation in the general Poincar\'e gauge cosmolog…
In the standard cosmological picture the Universe underwent a brief period of near-exponential expansion, known as Inflation. This provides an explanation for structure formation through the amplification of perturbations by the rapid…
Non-perturbative corrections from loop quantum cosmology (LQC) to the scalar matter sector is already known to imply inflation. We prove that the LQC modified scalar field generates exponential inflation in the small scale factor regime,…
In most current models of inflation based on a weakly self-coupled scalar matter field minimally coupled to gravity, the period of inflation lasts so long that, at the beginning of the inflationary period, the physical wavelengths of…
We propose an inflation model in which the inflationary era is driven by the strong dynamics of $Sp(2)$ gauge theory. The quark condensation in the confined phase of $Sp(2)$ gauge theory generates the inflaton potential comparable to the…
The dynamics of hybrid models is usually approximated by the evolution of a scalar field slowly rolling along a nearly flat valley. Inflation ends with a waterfall phase, due to a tachyonic instability. This final phase is usually assumed…
Due to the quasi-exponential red-shifting which occurs during an inflationary period in the very early Universe, wavelengths which at the present time correspond to cosmological lengths are in general sub-Planckian during the early stages…
We consider the semi-classical dynamics of a free massive scalar field in a homogeneous and isotropic cosmological spacetime. The scalar field is quantized using the polymer quantization method assuming that it is described by a gaussian…
In this thesis we will primarily demonstrate how additional scalar degrees of freedom - which are motivated from many high-energy embeddings - open up new observational windows onto the physics of inflation. We construct a Bayesian…
The possibility of having an inflationary epoch within a noncommutative geometry approach to unifying gravity and the standard model is demonstrated. This inflationary phase occurs without the need to introduce "ad hoc" additional fields or…
The deep interrelation between elementary particle physics and cosmology manifests itself when one considers the contribution of quantum fluctuations of vacuum fields to the dark energy and the effective cosmological constant. The…
After a brief summary of general relativity and cosmology, we present the basic concepts underlying inflation, the currently best motivated models for the early Universe. We describe the simplest inflation models, based on a single scalar…
We introduce a numerical method specifically designed for investigating generic multifield models of inflation where a number of scalar fields $\phi^K$ are minimally coupled to gravity and live in a field space with a non-trivial metric…
The general structure of Hybrid Inflation remains a very well-motivated mechanism for lower-scale cosmic inflation in the face of improving constraints on the tensor-to-scalar ratio. However, as originally modeled, the "waterfall" field in…
Inflation is studied in the context of induced gravity (IG) $\gamma \sigma^2 R$, where $R$ is the Ricci scalar, $\sigma$ a scalar field and $\gamma$ a dimensionless constant, and diverse symmetry-breaking potentials $V(\sigma)$ are…
In this paper, we analyze the early-time inflation in a scalar-tensor theory of gravity where the scalar field is minimally coupled with the Gauss-Bonnet four dimensional topological invariant. The theory belongs to a class of Horndeski…
Inflation has been the leading early universe scenario for two decades, and has become an accepted element of the successful `cosmic concordance' model. However, there are many puzzling features of the resulting theory. It requires both…
We address the issue of fine-tuning of the initial field configuration that can lead to hybrid inflation in the context of global supersymmetry. This problem is generated by the difference between the energy scale at which the Universe…
We study the inflationary model constructed from a Spatially Covariant Gravity (SCG). The Lagrangian for the SCG in our consideration is expressed as the polynomial of irreducible SCG monomials where the total number of derivatives of each…
We examine inflationary universe models driven by scalar fields with logarithmic potentials of the form $V(\phi) = V_0 \phi^p(\ln \phi)^q$. Combining the slow-roll approximation with asymptotic techniques, we identify regions of the…
Cosmological inflation gives a natural answer for a variety of cosmological questions, including the horizon problem, the flatness problem, and others. However, inflation yields new questions relating to the flatness of the inflaton…