Related papers: How much primordial tensor mode is allowed?
We investigate the prior dependence of constraints on cosmic tensor perturbations. Commonly imposed is the strong prior of the single-field inflationary consistency equation, relating the tensor spectral index nT to the tensor-to-scalar…
The cosmic energy density in the form of radiation before and during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) is typically parameterized in terms of the effective number of neutrinos N_eff. This quantity, in case of no extra degrees of freedom,…
We investigate the impact of a nonstandard electron mass $m_e$ on early-Universe thermal history, focusing on neutrino decoupling and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). In the standard cosmology, neutrino--electron interactions keep neutrinos…
In this paper we provide an accurate bound on primordial gravitational waves, i.e. tensor-to-scalar ratio $(r)$ for a general class of single-field models of inflation where inflation occurs always below the Planck scale, and the field…
We discuss a cosmological scenario with a stochastic background of gravitational waves sourced by the tensor perturbation due to a hybrid inflationary model with cubic potential. The tensor-to-scalar ratio for the present hybrid…
Motivated by the string gas cosmological model, which predicts a blue tilt of the primordial gravitational wave spectrum, we examine the constraints imposed by current and planned observations on a blue tilted tensor spectrum. Starting from…
I discuss constraints on the power spectrum of primordial tensor perturbations from a combination of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) measurements and the gravitational wave direct detection experiments LIGO/Virgo and DECIGO. There are two…
In the measurements of cosmic microwave background polarizations, three frequency channels are necessary for discriminating the primordial B-modes from the polarized dust and the synchrotron emission. We carry out an optimistic estimate on…
Recently the second phase of Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP2) claimed a detection of the tensor-to-scalar ratio ($r$) of primordial fluctuation at $5\sigma$ confidence level. If it is true, this large and…
We discuss the present bounds on the relativistic energy density in the Universe parameterized in terms of the effective number of neutrinos N using the most recent cosmological data on Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature…
The vast majority of extensions of the Standard Model affecting the number of effective relativistic neutrino species ($N_{\rm eff}$) do so additively, namely, they enhance this quantity with some light state contributing to dark radiation.…
We extend an alternative, phenomenological approach to inflation by means of an equation of state and a sound speed, both of them functions of the number of $e$-folds and four phenomenological parameters. This approach captures a number of…
We discuss the physics resulting from the supersymmetric Higgs-lepton inflation model and the recent CMB B-mode observation by the BICEP2 experiment. The tensor-to-scalar ratio r=0.20+0.07-0.05 of the primordial fluctuations indicated by…
Perturbative quantum corrections to primordial power spectra are important for testing the robustness and the regime of validity of inflation as an effective field theory. Although this has been done extensively for the density power…
We explore constraints on extensions to the standard models of cosmology and particle physics which modify the early-Universe expansion rate S = H'/H (parametrized by the effective number of neutrinos N_nu). The constraints on N_nu and the…
Inflation elegantly provides initial conditions for the standard model of cosmology, while solving the horizon, flatness, and magnetic monopole problems. Inflationary models make predictions for the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ and the…
Recently, BICEP2 collaboration has released their results on the measurements of the CMB polarizations. In the framework of the $\Lambda$CDM with a power law form of the scalar primordial power spectrum, this new measurement on the B-mode…
Recent data seem to suggest a preference for the evolving dark energy (DE). However, if the case is actually so, and not caused by unknown systematics in data, it might impact our understanding about our Universe in an anomalous way due to…
Combining Planck CMB temperature [1] and BICEP2 B-mode polarization data [2,3] we show qualitatively that, assuming inflationary consistency relation, the power-law form of the scalar primordial spectrum is ruled out at more than $3\sigma$…
In this paper we constrain the tilt of the spectra of primordial gravitational waves from Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP2) data only. We find $r=0.21_{-0.10}^{+0.04}$ and $n_t=-0.06_{-0.23}^{+0.25}$ (at…