Related papers: Cosmological Collider Physics and the Curvaton
The quantum fluctuations of the Higgs field during inflation could be a source of primordial density perturbations through Higgs-dependent inflaton decay. By measuring primordial non-Gaussianities, this so-called Higgs-modulated reheating…
Quantum field theory, which is generally used to describe the origin of large-scale gravitational perturbations during cosmic inflation, has been shown to omit an important physical effect in curved space-time, the nonlocal entanglement…
A model of inflation is presented where the inflaton field is a complex scalar field coupled to a U(1) gauge field. Due to the axial symmetry of the potential, the inflation is driven by the radial direction while the angular field is…
Simple models of single-field inflation in the very early universe can generate the observed amplitude and scale dependence of the primordial density perturbation, but models with multiple fields can provide an equally good fit to current…
In an inflationary cosmology, the observed primoridal density perturbation could come from the quantum fluctuations of another light 'curvaton' field, rather than the inflaton. In this case, it is essential that the curvaton decays,…
We investigate the production of primordial black holes (PBHs) in a mixed inflaton-curvaton scenario with a quadratic curvaton potential, assuming the curvaton is in de Sitter equilibrium during inflation with $\langle \chi\rangle =0$. In…
Inflation models can have an early phase of inflation where the evolution of the inflaton is driven by quantum fluctuations before entering the phase driven by the slope of the scalar field potential. For a Coleman-Weinberg potential this…
In our previous work \cite{Feng:2013pba}, we have shown a curvaton model where the curvaton has a nonminimal derivative coupling to gravity. Such a coupling could bring us scale-invariance of the perturbations for wide range constant values…
Curvature perturbations generated after the end of inflation are estimated for a generic multi-field inflationary potential. The curvature perturbations are generated by conversion of inflationary isocurvature perturbations, similar to…
A pseudo-scalar inflaton field can have interesting phenomenological signatures associated with parity violation. The existing analyses of these signatures typically assume statistical isotropy. In the present work we instead investigate…
In the primordial universe, fields with mass much larger than the mass-scale of the event-horizon (such as the Hubble parameter in inflation) exist ubiquitously, and can be excited from time to time and oscillate quickly around their…
We consider a novel cosmological scenario in which a curvaton is long-lived and plays the role of cold dark matter (CDM) in the presence of a short, secondary inflation. Non-trivial evolution of the large scale cosmological perturbation in…
By using the thermodynamic theory of irreversible processes and Einstein general relativity, a cosmological model is proposed where the early universe is considered as a mixture of a scalar field with a matter field. The scalar field refers…
We show that a quadratic $U(1)$-breaking term, together with an effective chemical potential induced by a dimension five derivative coupling between the inflaton and the $U(1)$ current, can drive efficient particle production during…
We investigate a very general class of cosmological models with scalar fields non-minimally coupled to gravity. A particular representative in this class is given by the non-minimal Higgs inflation model in which the Standard Model Higgs…
Motivated by the recent `Higgs-inflation' scenario based on a single inflaton field, we consider more generic two-field inflation with non-minimal coupling term. The generic analytic expressions are derived for cosmological observables with…
We show that the quantum dynamics of a real scalar field for a large class of potentials in the symmetric Gaussian state, where the nonperturbative quantum contributions are taken into account, can be described equivalently by a…
We study non-Gaussianity, the spectral index of primordial scalar fluctuations and tensor modes in models where fluctuations from the inflaton and the curvaton can both contribute to the present cosmic density fluctuations. Even though…
We investigate the non-Gaussianity of primordial cosmological perturbations within our recently proposed holographic description of inflationary universes. We derive a holographic formula that determines the bispectrum of cosmological…
Complex scalar fields charged under approximate $U(1)$ symmetries appear in well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model. One example is the field that contains the QCD axion field associated with the Peccei-Quinn symmetry; others…