Related papers: QCD Axion Window and False Vacuum Higgs Inflation
CMB limits on cold-dark-matter isocurvature are often interpreted as excluding the simultaneous realization of high-scale inflation and large QCD axion decay constants in pre-inflationary Peccei--Quinn (PQ) scenarios. This conclusion can be…
We re-examine the predictiveness of single-field inflationary models and discuss how an unknown UV completion can complicate determining inflationary model parameters from observations, even from precision measurements. Besides the usual…
For a robust interpretation of upcoming observations from Planck and LHC experiments it is imperative to understand how the inflationary dynamics of a non-minimally coupled Higgs scalar field may affect the degeneracy of the inflationary…
The quantum gravitational scale of inflation is calculated by finding a sharp probability peak in the distribution function of chaotic inflationary cosmologies driven by a scalar field with large negative constant $\xi$ of nonminimal…
It is known that the Higgs potential becomes flat around the Planck scale under the assumption that the Standard Model is valid up to very high scale. Taking this into account, we revisit the Higgs inflation scenario and find that the…
It is widely believed that string theory easily allows for a QCD axion in the cosmologically favoured mass range. The required small decay constant, $f_a\ll M_P$, can be implemented by using a large compactification volume. This points to…
Chain Inflation is an alternative to slow roll inflation in which the universe undergoes a series of transitions between different vacua. The density perturbations (studied in this paper) are seeded by the probabilistic nature of tunneling…
We develop in this thesis the principles governing the production of our universe's primordial inhomogeneities during its early phase of inflation. As a guiding thread we ask what physics during inflation can lead to perturbations so large…
The recent BICEP2 result shows that the Universe once has gone through the vacuum with the GUT scale energy density. The implied high scale inflation nullifies the dilution idea of topological defects, strings and domain walls, of the…
Many models of high energy physics possess metastable vacua. It is conceivable that the universe can get trapped in such a false vacuum, irrespective of its origin and prior history, at an earlier stage during its evolution. The ensuing…
We propose a model for cosmic inflation which is based on an effective description of strongly interacting, nonsupersymmetric matter within the framework of dynamical abelian projection and centerization. The underlying gauge symmetry is…
Motivated by the recently proposed Trans-Planckian Censorship Conjecture (TCC), we propose a gauged $B-L$ model of inflection-point inflation with axion dark matter. The Hubble scale during inflation ($H_{\rm inf}$) satisfies the TCC bound…
We study the low-temperature limit of warm inflation in a hilltop model. This limit remains valid up to the end of inflation, allowing an analytic description of the entire inflationary stage. In the weak dissipative regime, if the kinetic…
Higgs inflation is a simple and elegant model in which early-universe inflation is driven by the Higgs sector of the Standard Model. The Higgs sector can support early-universe inflation if it has a large nonminimal coupling to the Ricci…
According to the standard lore, a prolonged inflation leaves a quantum field theory in a cold, low entropy state. Thus, some mechanism is needed to reheat this post-inflationary state, leaving a hot, thermal, radiation-dominated Universe.…
If the inflaton is a pseudo-scalar axion, the axion shift symmetry can protect the flatness of its potential from too large radiative corrections. This possibility, known as natural inflation, requires an axion scale which is greater than…
The detection of an oscillating pattern in the bispectrum of density perturbations could suggest the existence of a high-energy second minimum in the Higgs potential. If the Higgs field resided in this new minimum during inflation and was…
Inflation occurring at energy densities less than (10$^{14}$ GeV)$^4$ produces tensor perturbations too small to be measured by cosmological surveys. However, we show that it is possible to probe low scale inflation by measuring the mass of…
We consider a simple extension of the Standard Model Higgs inflation with one new real scalar field which preserves unitarity up to the Planck scale. The new scalar field (called sigma) completes in the ultraviolet the theory of Higgs…
We demonstrate that the strict upper bounds on the energy scale of inflation and on the tensor-to-scalar ratio can be somewhat relaxed if we assume that - after an initial period of slow rolling when scales probed today in CMB experiments…