Related papers: On the viability of Locked Inflation
We argue, using a phenomenological holographic approach, that walking, strongly coupled gauge theories generate a suitable potential for a small field inflation model. We show that the effective description is a model of a single inflaton.…
Recent results from cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments verify several of the predictions of inflation, while ruling out a number of alternative structure-formation scenarios. Given the successes of the theory, the obvious next…
We construct a model of inflation based on a low-energy effective theory of spontaneously broken global scale invariance. This provides a shift symmetry that protects the inflaton potential from quantum corrections. Since the underlying…
This article gives a brief overview of some of the theory behind the inflationary cosmology, and discusses prospects for constraining inflation using observations. Particular care is given to the question of falsifiability of inflation or…
We consider the formation of topological defects after inflation. In order to take into account the effects of the rescattering of fluctuations, we integrate the classical equation that describes the evolution of a complex scalar field on…
We perform a numerical investigation of the fields evolution in the supersymmetric inflationary model based on radiative corrections. Supergravity corrections are also included. We find that, out of all the examined initial data, only about…
We propose a new class of natural inflation models based on a hidden scale invariance. In a very generic Wilsonian effective field theory with an arbitrary number of scalar fields, which exhibits scale invariance via the dilaton, the…
A unified approach to quintessence and inflation is investigated with the use of a single scalar field. It is argued that successful potentials have to approximate a combination of exponential and inverse power-law decline in the limit of…
Most models of inflation have small parameters, either to guarantee sufficient inflation or the correct magnitude of the density perturbations. In this paper we show that, in supersymmetric theories with weak scale supersymmetry breaking,…
We analyze the flow into inflation for generic "single-clock" systems, by combining an effective field theory approach with a dynamical-systems analysis. In this approach, we construct an expansion for the potential-like term in the…
We consider models of inflection point inflation. The main drawback of such models is that they suffer from the overshoot problem. Namely the initial condition should be fine tuned to be near the inflection point for the universe to…
A scalar field with an exponential potential has been proposed as a model of inflation (called power-law inflation). Although it admits an exact solution, the integrability of the system has not been shown.We uncover the hidden symmetries…
Open Inflation has recently been suggested as a possible way out of the age crisis caused by observations of a large rate of expansion of the universe, in conflict with the existence of very old globular clusters. It proposes that our local…
In the hope of avoiding model dependence of the cosmological observables, phenomenological parametrizations of Cosmic Inflation have recently been proposed. Typically, they are expressed in terms of two parameters associated with an…
Inflation with tunneling from a false to a true vacuum becomes viable in the presence of a scalar field that slows down the initial de Sitter phase. As a by-product this field also sets dynamically the value of the Newton constant observed…
We revisit the recently proposed mechanism of Geometric Inflation. On general grounds, we show that obtaining the right amount of inflation demands an exceedingly large initial energy density. We introduce a scalar field and study the…
In this paper we consider inflation as a probe of new physics near the string or Planck scale. We discuss how new physics can be captured by the choice of vacuum, and how this leads to modifications of the primordial spectrum as well as the…
The original model of axion natural inflation produces a tensor-to-scalar ratio above the experimental limit. Aligned axion inflation admits inflationary trajectories that originate near a saddle point of the two-field potential, and…
We investigate the embedding of brane inflation into stable compactifications of string theory. At first sight a warped compactification geometry seems to produce a naturally flat inflaton potential, evading one well-known difficulty of…
The stochastic inflation program is a framework for understanding the dynamics of a quantum scalar field driving an inflationary phase. Though widely used and accepted, there have over recent years been serious criticisms of this theory. In…