Related papers: Constraints on features in the inflationary potent…
Inflation is a highly favoured theory for the early Universe. It is compatible with current observations of the cosmic microwave background and large scale structure and is a driver in the quest to detect primordial gravitational waves. It…
The primordial power spectrum is an indirect probe of inflation or other structure-formation mechanisms. We introduce a new method, named \textbf{PRISM}, to estimate this spectrum from the empirical cosmic microwave background (CMB) power…
The simplest inflationary models predict the primordial power spectrum (PPS) of curvature perturbations to be nearly scale-invariant. However, various other models of inflation predict deviations from this behaviour, motivating a…
Measuring the primordial power spectrum on small scales is a powerful tool in inflation model building, yet constraints from Cosmic Microwave Background measurements alone are insufficient to place bounds stringent enough to be appreciably…
We confront the warm inflation observational predictions directly with the latest CMB data. We focus on a linear temperature (T) dissipative coefficient combined with the simplest model of inflation, a quartic chaotic potential. Although…
The ability to test and constrain theories of cosmic inflation will advance substantially over the next decade. Key data sources include cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements and observations of the distribution of matter at…
I discuss folded inflation, an inflationary model embedded in a multi-dimensional scalar potential, such as the stringy landscape. During folded inflation, the field point evolves along a path that turns several corners in the potential.…
Due to the tremendous red-shift that occurs during the inflationary epoch in the early universe, it has been realized that trans-Planckian physics may manifest itself at energies much lower than the Planck energy. The presence of a…
Slow-roll inflation can be studied as an effective field theory. The form of the inflaton potential consistent with the data is V(phi) = N M^4 w(phi/[sqrt{N} M_{Pl}]) where phi is the inflaton field, M is the inflation energy scale, and N ~…
We revisit a single field inflationary model based on Coleman-Weinberg potentials. We show that in small field Coleman-Weinberg inflation, the observed amplitude of perturbations needs an extremely small quartic coupling of the inflaton,…
As a test of the standard inflationary cosmology, which generically predicts nearly scale-invariant spectrum of primordial curvature fluctuations, we perform Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo analysis to search for possible modulations in the power…
Recent cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations put strong constraints on the spatial curvature via estimation of the parameter $\Omega_k$ assuming an almost scale invariant primordial power spectrum. We study the evolution of the…
We derive analytic bounds on the shape of the primordial power spectrum in the context of single-field inflation. In particular, the steepest possible growth has a spectral index of $n_s - 1 = 4$ once transients have died down. Its primary…
The space of parameters characterizing an inflationary primordial power spectrum with small superimposed oscillations is explored using Monte Carlo methods. The most interesting region corresponding to high frequency oscillations is…
Inflationary cosmology represents a well-studied framework to describe the expansion of space in the early universe, as it explains the origin of the large-scale structure of the cosmos and the isotropy of the cosmic microwave background…
The capability of Cosmic Inflation to explain the latest Cosmic Microwave Background and Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation data is assessed by performing Bayesian model comparison within the landscape of nearly three-hundred models of…
Perturbations from inflation evolve into large scale structure of the late universe, and encode abundant cosmic structure formation physics. We allow freedom in the primordial power spectrum, rather than assuming a power law scale…
In this work, we analyze a power-law inflationary potential enhanced with a step that can introduce features in the primordial power spectrum. We focus on the computation of the Spectral Distortions (SD) induced by these features obtained…
We study the implications of the recently proposed Trans-Planckian Censorship Conjecture (TCC) for early universe cosmology and in particular inflationary cosmology. The TCC leads to the conclusion that if we want inflationary cosmology to…
I discuss the current status of inflationary cosmology in light of the recent WMAP 3-year data release. The basic predictions of inflation are all supported by the data. Inflation also makes predictions which have not been well tested by…