Related papers: Probing the Weak Gravity Conjecture in the Cosmic …
Observable quantities in cosmology are dimensionless, and therefore independent of the units in which they are measured. This is true of all physical quantities associated with the primordial perturbations that source cosmic microwave…
Recent Planck data show the anomalies of CMB fluctuations on large angular scales, which confirms the early observations by WMAP. We continue studying an inflationary model, in which before the slow roll inflation the universe is in a…
We compute the rate with which super-Hubble cosmological fluctuations are decohered during inflation, by their gravitational interactions with unobserved shorter-wavelength scalar and tensor modes. We do so using Open Effective Field Theory…
Could COBE DMR be detecting the imprint from a spectrum of gravitational waves generated during inflation? The conventional inflationary prediction had been that the cosmic microwave anisotropy is dominated by energy density fluctuations…
In this paper, we present compelling evidence for the parity asymmetry (a discrete symmetry that is separate from isotropy) in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) map, measured through two-point temperature correlations. This parity…
We study constraints on the natural inflation model from the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). Inflaton \phi for the natural inflation has a potential of the form V=\Lambda^4[1-\cos(\phi/\sqrt{2}f_\phi)], which is parametrized…
We investigate the impact of a non-minimal coupling of the scalar field with gravity in inflationary models, where a small coupling is allowed. As a concrete example, we consider the Witten-O'Raifeartaigh model, where, in line with other…
In effective supergravity theories following from the superstring, a modulus field can quite naturally set the neccessary initial conditions for successful cosmological inflation to be driven by a hidden sector scalar field. The leading…
In this work, we propose a model of warm inflation driven by axion-like particles interacting with $U(1)$ gauge fields, with implications for the early universe's thermal evolution. By extending traditional warm inflation models, we…
The shift-symmetric coupling of a pseudo-scalar particle driving inflation to gauge fields provides a unique way of probing cosmic inflation. We show for an SU(2) gauge group how a classical isotropic background gauge field develops from…
We study Planck 2015 cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy data using the energy density inhomogeneity power spectrum generated by quantum fluctuations during an early epoch of inflation in the non-flat XCDM model. Here dark energy…
The recent BICEP2 measurement of B-modes in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background suggests that inflation was driven by a field at an energy scale of $2\times 10^{16}$ GeV. I explore the potential of upcoming CMB polarization…
In the standard inflationary paradigm the inhomogeneities observed in the CMB arise from quantum fluctuations of an initially homogeneous and isotropic vacuum state. This picture suffers from two well-known weaknesses. First, it assumes…
We discuss the polarization signature of primordial gravitational waves imprinted in cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. The high-energy physics motivated by superstring theory or M-theory generically yield parity violating…
There is solid theoretical and observational motivation behind the idea of scale-invariance as a fundamental symmetry of Nature. We consider a recently proposed classically scale-invariant inflationary model, quadratic in curvature and…
The BB-mode correlation angular power spectrum of CMB is studied for primordial massive gravitational waves for several inflation models. The comparative study of the angular power spectrum with the joint BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck data…
Inflationary scenario based on a renormalizable model of conformal gravity is proposed and primordial spectrum is derived. The sharp fall off of the angular power spectra at low multipoles in the COBE and WMAP observations are explained by…
We study Planck 2015 cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy data using the energy density inhomogeneity power spectrum generated by quantum fluctuations during an early epoch of inflation in the non-flat $\Lambda$CDM model. Unlike…
The BICEP/$\textit{Keck}$ (BK) series of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization experiments has, over the past decade and a half, produced a series of field-leading constraints on cosmic inflation via measurements of the "B-mode"…
We study the pattern of oscillations in the primordial power spectrum in axion monodromy inflation, accounting for drifts in the oscillation period that can be important for comparing to cosmological data. In these models the potential…